for,' 




W 




Class 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



The Power of Silence 



tAn Interpretation of Life in its Relation to Health 
and Happiness 



BY 

HORATIO W. DF 




It* tfU* 

" Ye taught my lips a single speech 



And a thousand silences 

Emerson 



BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street 

1895 



^•a* 

^ 



COPYRIGHT 

1895 

HORATIO W. DRBSSBR 



Oeo. H. ELLtS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON. 



Eo mv Jat&et anfl fRatfytv, 

JULIUS A. DRESSER, 
ANNETTA G. DRESSER, 

THIS YOLUME IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE. 



The present volume is the outgrowth of more than 
a half-century of inquiry on the part of those to whom 
the author is chiefly indebted. This inquiry began with 
the researches of Dr. P. P. Quimby, of Belfast, Me., 
who devoted more than twenty years to the investigation 
of mental phenomena in relation to health and happiness. 
With him the author's father and mother were associated 
for several years previous to his death in 1866, and from 
him they learned many practical truths of the inner life. 
But Dr. Quimby left no published work, and they were 
long prevented by adverse circumstances from making 
any public use of his investigations. Yet they never lost 
sight of his teaching. It became a life with them, and 
bore the test of all the experiences in the category of 
sorrow and suffering. They created a home atmosphere 
of hope, of quiet strength and healthy inquiry, into which 
it was a rich heritage to be born. 

Out of these household discussions grew in time many 
courses of lectures delivered to small audiences in Boston 
and elsewhere. The following pages represent the last 



of these courses, delivered in Boston during the past year 
by the author in co-operation with Mrs. A. G. Dresser. 
Chapter II., on "The Immanent God," has already 
appeared in pamphlet form ; and the kind reception ac- 
corded it has led to the revision and publication of the 
other papers in the series. In this task the author has 
been constantly guided by the advice and suggestion of 
Mrs. Dresser, to whom he is especially indebted for the 
subject matter of the concluding chapter. The volume 
may, therefore, be fairly taken to represent our co-operative 
thought, and in a way to reflect the lives of the two pioneer 
workers in this field, whose unsparing devotion was, for us, 
the best evidence of its truth while thev were still here. 



H. W. D. 



481 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., 
March 25, 1895. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

I. Introductory 9 

II. The Immanent God 17 

III. The World of Manifestation .... 48 

IV. Our Life in Mind 71 

V. The Meaning of Suffering 104 

VI. Adjustment to Life 131 

VII. Poise 161 

VIII. Self-help 191 



I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

One characteristic stands out above all others 
in the century of thought now rapidly drawing 
to a close. It is an age of persistent and un- 
sparing inquiry, of search for causes, sources, 
origins. It is not content with faith alone, but 
seeks reasons. The distinctions between schools 
and systems of thought are fading out in the 
light of the larger sympathy and sense of 
brotherhood which the age inspires. The ideal 
of a universal human society, a universal sci- 
ence, and a universal religion, is already dawn- 
ing upon us. Students of history, of nature, of 
human thought and society, are endeavoring to 
draw an accurate picture of the world-life of the 
past out of which the present has necessarily 
proceeded. There is a new demand made upon 
man, — to understand himself in the light of all 
the causes that have operated to produce him, 
his thought, his daily experience, his joy and 
suffering. This desire to know the origin of 
beings and things as a progressing whole gives 
the clue to the method and purpose of the pres- 
ent volume. 



IO 

Its first object is to be helpful, but not in the 
traditional way. It urges no mere acceptance of 
its doctrine, proposes no name for its theory, 
and claims neither originality nor finality for its 
teaching. It offers reasons for certain phases of 
the inner life which have hitherto remained 
mysterious. It is offered as a possible stimulus 
to systematic and patient inquiry. But it has a 
far deeper object than this, a purpose in which 
it will fail unless it be perfectly clear from the 
outset that this volume is something more than 
a restatement of the great and beautiful truths 
which were enunciated so long ago. 

This purpose will become apparent by consid- 
ering the difference between one person and an- 
other. Life is a problem which has for each an 
individual solution. No one can wholly solve it 
for us or take from it the element of personal 
responsibility. It has its own particular history 
and meaning in each individual case. Differ- 
ence in temperament and in experience gives in- 
finite variety to these personal solutions*-/ The 
utmost that one individual can do for another is 
to enunciate the principles which underlie all 
experiences, however varied. Truth is not truth 
for us until we have made it our own through 
reflection, until we have applied it in daily life 

It is hoped, then, that the reader will stop 
every important point, as the discussion ap 




II 

proaches daily life, to make the thought his own 
through quiet realization of its spirit and its 
meaning. Let him pause in restful silence to 
ask, without forcing himself to think, What does 
this mean for me? How does it explain, how 
does it accord with my experience? Have I 
ever devoted time and reflection — alone with 
my deepest self — to realize the full bearing of 
the profoundest and sublimest truths of life? 
Have I ever made them my own and actualized 
them in daily life, or is there still a chasm be- 
tween theory and practice? 

If the reader will keep this practical object 
constantly in view, unsuspected applications of 
well-known truths will become apparent before 
the volume is finished. 

This book does not, however, advise rigorous 
self-analysis of the personal self alone. It 
seeks a way of escape from narrowing introspec- 
tion and self-consciousness. It seeks the Origin 
of all consciousness and all life. It proceeds on 
the principle that man cannot fully understand 
himself without constant reference to the omni- 
present Spirit in whom he lives, and that in this 
profoundest wisdom is to be found the one un- 
failing resource in every moment of need. It is 
not an inquiry alone. It is a chapter from life, 
an appeal to life, and aims to give the thing 
itself, so far as possible, instead of talking about 



12 



it. The principles on which it insists are the 
outgrowth of experience emphasized by reason. 
It therefore appeals both to the reason of the 
reader and to those deeper feelings which find 
their reason in our relationship to the great 
Over-Soul. How else can one hope to unite 
philosophy and life? 

It is obviously better to be true to all aspects 
of life as it appears from the angle of one's own 
temperament and experience than to force all 
facts into a particular system. The deepest 
facts are usually slighted, if not excluded, by 
the latter process. No formula seems large 
enough to cover all we know and feel. There is 
an element in experience that always eludes us. 
i Some experiences can never be told. They are 
part of us. They are sacred, and one hesitates 
to speak of them. Yet one can suggest them, 
ior at least let it be known that in these rarest 
jmoments of existence one seemed most truly to 
live. Only in this way does the soul, or that 
part of us which is most truly individual, find 
partial expression in language. Only in this 
way does the unfetterec!*?£*^show its freedom 
from prejudice and dogma. Allegiance to a 
person or tlie%^ limits one to the particular 
view of life represented by that person or theory. 
To claim finality for one's system of thought 
would be equivalent to affirming that progress 



shall end with that particular discussion. Our 
theories serve us well so long as we remember 
that life itself is larger. 

Life, then, is large, and demands a broad way 
of thinking about it. To the majority, it is 
true, life is a mystery into which it is futile to 
delve too deeply, or it is a series of experiences 
at once so contradictory and fragmentary that no 
one can deduce any meaning from them. We 
have no sense of what our total self means. 
We suffer, and we seek relief. We are absorbed 
in the present, in its needs and woes, unaware 
that our whole past lives, our inheritance and 
our temperament, may affect this bit of suffer- 
ing nature which for the moment limits our 
thought. Thus experience everywhere lacks 
perspective. Our thinking is painfully narrow. 
We do not look far enough. We live as though 
time were soon to cease, and prudence would not 
permit us an hour for quiet reflection. 

Yet a new phase, and to some the happiest 
phase, of life begins when we become conscious 
of our intimate relation to eternity, when we 
stop hurried thought, and try quietly to realize 
what life means as a progressing whole. If life 
be one, and reveal one purpose, one God, can 
any other interpretation be rational, will the 
parts ever assume their true relationship in our 
minds except when viewed in the light of the 



14 

whole? If all power be one, and resident in the 
universe, acting through something or somebody, 
can we not discover how it is acting, and thereby 
learn the course of events as related to our own 
lives? Can we not become adjusted to the situ- 
ation as it actually is, and stop this continual 
rebellion, this sense of dis-ease and lack of har- 
mony with the inevitable? Possibly our suffer- 
ing is largely unnecessary, and is caused by our 
own attitude. Possibly, too, it has a deeper 
meaning than we had suspected. 

B^ before we can bring about a change of at- 
titude, before we can realize the power of si- 
lence, we must have a firm basis to stand upon, 
we must know what that power is. The pres- 
ence of an unwordable element in our deepest 
experience is no excuse for vagueness. The 
thoughtful mind of to-day is no longer content 
with mere scepticism or with mere unproved 
assertion. We must have a reason for our faith: 
otherwise it is no faith at all, and the first try- 
ing experience will set us once more adrift at 
the mercy of fear and opinion. 

Finally, then, this book aims to be positive 
and hopeful, in spirit and in teaching. Its first 
proposition is : — 

Experience is best explained by its immediate 
environment. The truth is involved in the very 
nature of the beings and things by which we are 



15 

surrounded. It only needs to be evolved or 
made explicit. All power is immanent. It 
works through something. Man should not look 
beyond his own nature, his own temperament, 
inheritance, education, until he is compelled to 
do so in order to find an adequate explanation of 
his experience. He should have a clear concep- 
tion of the closely related events out of which 
his own life has proceeded as an inevitable conse- 
quence, just as the river is enlarged and shaped 
in its course by its tributaries and the country 
through which it flows, yet never rises higher 
than its source. In a word, he must know his 
origin, both immediate and remote. He must 
start with his own personal experience, but 
should not stop until he have traced it to the 
very Source beyond which thought can never go. 
This inquiry leads us to a consideration of the 
subject of subjects, on which one most of all 
hesitates to speak, — the nature and life of God. 
In pursuing this inquiry, the aim will be to use 
simple, untechnical language, with no historical 
references and as little dry reasoning as possi- 
ble. Although this method is open to adverse 
criticism, it unquestionably serves the purpose 
of the book, namely, to deal directly with the 
thing itself out of which grow both philosophy 
and life. Truth is a sphere into which we must 
break somewhere. If our inquiry lead us finally 



i6 

to the Reality itself, we shall feel it and know 
it, and lay little stress on the mere words and 
forms that led us to the Spirit beneath them. 
Let us, then, make the start in some well-known 
fact of existence, which shall lead as quickly as 
possible to that on which all existence depends. 



II. 

THE IMMANENT GOD. 

Some knowledge of the law of cause and effect 
lies at the basis of all systematic reflection. 
When a message is flashed over the wires from 
town to town, or the electric car transports us 
quickly and easily through the city streets, we 
know beyond all question that some cause has 
produced the effect which serves us so readily. 
The ease and rapidity with which the effect 
results do not deceive us. We may know little 
about the force in question ; but we know that it 
acts in unvarying accordance with certain laws, 
the understanding of which enables us to control 
it. We learn further that every cause has its 
antecedent. The electricity is generated with 
energy derived ultimately from the sun. The 
motion of the ship, as it sails before the wind, 
is likewise traceable from wind to sun, from the 
sun to the very primal source of the motion 
which caused our universe to be. And we stop 
here only because we know not the antecedent of 
this first activity. 

The chain of related causes and their subse- 
quent effects is in reality endless. I Without a 



18 

cause nothing can happen, nothing ever hap- 
pened; and with an eternally active cause in the 
world something must always happen. ") Every 
cause, every effect, every event in the history of 
the universe and in our own lives, is inseparably 
connected with this infinite series, extending far 
backward into the irrevocable past, and poten- 
tially related to an ever-dawning future. If we 
start with the simple motion of the hand, or the 
reflex nerve-action which preceded it, and seek 
its cause, we inevitably end with this untrace- 
able series of closely related events, which be- 
wilders the thought by its vastness. 

What does all this signify? When did cause 
and effect begin? An absolute beginning is 
simply unthinkable. One all-embracing series 
of causes and effects must have existed eter- 
nally, of which our world and its activity is a 
part, and of which all future activity will be an 
outgrowth. Furthermore, if the motion of my 
arm is related causally to the activity of my 
whole body, to my brain, to my physical and 
mental environment, to my parents and to thou- 
sands of others who have thought and acted 
before me, to the world, the sun, — in a word, to 
all activity throughout eternity, — then the sub- 
stance moved is no less a part of eternity. 

To grasp this thought fully, try for a moment 
to conceive the absence of all existences in the 



*9 

universe, and then imagine the creation or ap- 
pearance of something or of some being in this 
infinite void. Such an event is utterly incon- 
ceivable, since something could not be a product 
of nothing, and every result must have an effi- 
cient and substantial cause. If, then, some- 
thing can neither be made from nothing, nor 
something become non-existent, the sum total 
of substance must ever be the same. It can be 
modified, evolved, or dissolved, but must itself 
be eternal. 

Try now to imagine a condition of things in 
which there should be no motion, and conceive 
the beginning of motion in the illimitable and 
perfectly inert universe which you have conjured 
up. Once more the attempt is futile. Ab- 
solute and universal rest, like a perfect void, 
is inconceivable. Something moving would be 
needed wherewith to start motion, just as some- 
thing substantial must have existed before a 
new product could result. If only one parti- 
cle moved, then something moving must have 
caused its motion ; and, if it moved once only, 
all existing particles would be set in motion, 
since all particles are causally correlated. Mo- 
tion could not cease, since only a moving power 
could stop it, and there would be no power to 
stop this inhibiting force. 

The cessation of motion, then, like its incep- 



20 

tion, is unthinkable. If it were not continuous, 
eternal, it could never have become a fact. 
Moreover, motion implies not only a continuous, 
all-embracing series of causes and effects, but 
the existence of the eternally moving substance 
already postulated. Motion also means change 
from place to place, from one condition to an- 
other. Change in turn implies the experience 
of rhythm or interval in motion, which we call 
time. Change also implies the experience of 
space, or the extension in three directions of 
that which is moved. Thus an eternally exist- 
ing substance, uncreated and never-ceasing 
motion, infinite time and infinite space, are in- 
separably connected. Any particular substance, 
motion, interval, or space must be part of a 
great unitary whole which includes yet tran- 
scends them all. There is cause and effect, 
duration between them, extension of that which 
is moved or affected, eternal motion, and an 
ever-moving something whose infinite activity is 
thus characterized. Out of these we have con- 
structed the universe in imagination, and this 
grand result is implied in the simple statement 
that every effect has a cause. 

And what does this reasoning further signify? 
That there is one, and only one, eternal, omni- 
present Reality, whence came all that ever ex- 



21 

isted, or ever will exist, which includes and is 
all that ever proceeds from it, the one, ultimate, 
all-embracing Cause, which needs no farther 
explanation. It is self-existent, uncreated, in- 
destructible, at once the basis and the essence of 
all being, the one source to which all activity is 
ultimately traceable. It is simply Reality, — 
that for which we need seek no proof, since we 
are compelled to assume it in the very reasoning 
whereby we hope to prove its existence. It 
simply is, its own best reason for being. It is 
substance and power; it is life and conscious- 
ness itself, the knowledge of the existence of 
which is the one surest possession of human 
intelligence. It is, if you will, the infinite 
Spirit, the eternal Father, the unseen and per- 
manent basis of the visible and transient series 
of causes and effects which constitute world- 
experience and human life. It is the great 
Whole, to which there is no space and no time, 
no beginning and no ending, whose activity is 
continuous, and whose substance is all there is, 
to which we are ultimately led if we pursue our 
reasoning to its last conclusion. 

Were we to conceive the existence of a vast 
number of causes in place of the one Reality, 
these causes would still be correlated; they 
could not be independent, since every cause is 
the resultant of some antecedent cause, and no 



22 

reality could be independent but the all-inclu- 
sive origin of which we are speaking. The last 
cause, could we conceive an end to the infinite 
chain, would still be a unit, uncreated and eter- 
nal, and would therefore be the sum total of 
all that ever could exist. Otherwise stated, if 
there were more than one reality, then these 
other realities would possess activity and sub- 
stance revealed in space and time. No one of 
these realities would be omnipresent, indepen- 
dent, or self-existent. There would still exist 
an all-uniting, omnipresent Reality which would 
be the life and substance of all others and su- 
perior to all limitations of space and time. 
For the origin, being the All, is therefore in- 
finite, including yet transcending all bounds, 
including and revealing itself through all forms 
and qualities. 

When, therefore, we speak of a being or sub- 
stance with limitations, when we give names 
and assign attributes, such as "God is love," 
we mean some portion of this one eternal, omni- 
present, all-sufficient Reality, the one sub- 
stance, the one life, the sum total of all that 
actually exists. Could we know this one, could 
we define it, we should be this one. It is 
known to us through its infinite self-revelation 
as the universe. This universe of the correlated 
many must exist for one supreme purpose and be 



23 

governed by one transcendent law. Could we 
state this law and define this purpose, we should 
once more be this one which the many reveal. 
We may define it as intelligence, power, love, 
substance. But we have not defined It, but 
rather a certain attribute or manifestation as we 
know it. We may say that we know him, mean- 
ing a personal God. But we know him only in 
the one phase which appeals to our finite intelli- 
gence. The Reality is still the basis of all 
phases, of all attributes, of all manifestations of 
power and form. 

Again, we may deem him imperfect, and ac- 
tively engaged in thinking out his mighty prob- 
lems, of which this great, pulsating universe of 
ours is the objective representation, part by part 
corresponding to his thought, and our lives rep- 
resenting some special phase of this problem. 
But why, then, this definiteness of motive, re- 
vealed alike in all the kingdoms of nature, this 
co-operation toward an apparently preconceived 
end, if he is merely experimenting with us ? 
Would not this limited being be part of a larger 
Self, who knew all things from eternity, and is 
unlimited, infinite, and utterly beyond all defi- 
nition? Conceive and define him as we may, 
there still remains a Reality which no statement 
describes, which ever recedes as we seek to 
grasp it, but which is all we mean when we use 



the terms "God," "Spirit," "life," "the uni- 
verse," — yet more, which we cannot deny, since 
we assume it before we deny it, which imbues 
our thought with its presence, — yes, is our 
thought, is the thinker, the all in all. 

But I have thus far spoken of God only as 
the transcendent Reality which no language can 
define, a Reality which some dismiss as the 
unknowable, while others conceive it in purely 
mechanical terms. It follows from the fore- 
going that he is also immanent, that, whatever 
he may be as the absolute Reality, he is known 
in part to us as the God of our life and of our 
world. While, then, in one sense there can be 
no space and no immanency to an All, we must 
consider the relationship of the whole to its 
parts, and see how the world of manifestation of 
the Many proceeds necessarily from the nature 
of the One. 

We have seen that the events of life and of 
the universe are causaHy correlated, that they 
are joined in an unbroken series. And, since 
this series of events is part of a great unit, and 
there is only one Reality, all activity originates 
within and never outside this Reality. It is 
impossible, then, that some man-like God 
should have impressed his energy upon the 
primeval nebulous mass, and then retired we 
know not where, or that he should have made 



25 

the world out of nothing in six days, and then 
interfered with it from time to time by miracu- 
lous providences. For there is no extra-natural 
Deity. The sum total of substance and force 
does not change. And evolution, not creation,H 
is the law of life. 

The manifold changes which have brought the 
world to its present state, the endless working 
of force against force, of animal against animal, 
and man against man, and the ups and downs of 
human history, are probably just as important 
and require the divine presence just as much as 
the impulse which first brought our world into 
being. Either, then, — note the alternative, — 
God put forth his own being as the world, im- 
manent yet transcendent, and is with it, trans- 
forming it through phenomena, as much now, in 
this age, in these changing times, in this room, 
as in the irrevocable ages of the past, or there is 
no God at all. For whatever exists is a part of 
and within the one Reality. Nature's God, the 
immanent God, is the only possible God. Let 
me repeat. Either God is revealed through the 
cohesive force which holds matter together, and 
holds the planets in their positions in space, 
through the love which draws man to man, and 
the fortunes and misfortunes which characterize 
his progress, through the insensible gradations 
by which our politics are changing and our own 



26 



conflicts are making us true men and women, 
or there is no divine Father at all; for science 
tells us of no other development but that of 
ever-gradual and never-ceasing evolution, due to 
resident forces. 

Life, then, all life, yours and mine, all that 
holds it together and links it with the eternal 
forces of the universe, is a continuous, divine 
communication. There is no separation be- 
tween our own souls and that Spirit in whom, 
in the most literal sense, we live and move and 
have our being, between the world in which we 
live and that eternal Reality of whose substance 
and of whose activity it is a part. The life 
which sleeps in the rock, dreams in the plant, 
and awakens to consciousness in man, is the 
same, the one great life, which is revealed just 
as clearly in the fortuitous changes that spur us 
on to progress as in the exact movements of the 
planets. All nature reveals God. The sea, the 
sky, the mountains, the complex life of great 
cities, the simple life of the country, the admi- 
ration of the poet, the thought and feeling of all 
men, all nations, all books, all churches, all re- 
ligions. All thinkers, all artists and lovers of 
the beautiful, are feeling after him. All state 
in their own terms, and according to their de- 
gree of intelligence, the conception of a divine 
Father, which I have tried to make clear as it 



27 

appears to me; namely, that he is nature, yet 
more than nature, personal, yet more than per- 
son ; on the one hand, the great unit, omni- 
present force and substance whence all things 
and beings proceed, impersonal, infinite, un- 
known, transcendent, indefinable; on the other 
hand, relatively known, finite, immanent, per- 
sonal; an intelligent power, large enough to 
be the author of all life, and near enough so that 
Jesus could name him Father, and so that we 
can perceive his activity in our daily lives; an 
omnipresent Reality, whose complete nature is 
revealed in the total universe, and so much as 
we can comprehend in our own lives; a Spirit 
which has no form, but which all forms reveal; 
a God who is unknown and unperceived in this 
larger and deeper sense, except by those who 
have thought and suffered deeply, he whom we 
refuse to recognize when we look afar into the 
heavens for a god of our own fancy; a God 
who is not only immanent, but is that in which 
he dwells, — a continuous, all-pervasive, all-per- 
vaded Spirit; a Friend who is just as near to 
us in this present happy moment as in the count- 
less aeons of eternity of which this fleeting mo- 
ment is an integrant part. 

Do we realize what this nearness means, what 
it is to dwell with God consciously? Let me 
try to bring him yet nearer. 



28 

Sometimes one seems to look far into the eyes 
of a friend and to see the soul gazing from un- 
seen depths in return; and, as the face softens 
into a smile, one draws still nearer to that elu- 
sive somewhat called the human spirit, as it 
lends life and beauty to the features, itself in- 
visible, yet so plainly revealed that one can 
almost locate its vanishing touch. There are 
days in the country in summer — noticeably in 
June and September — when a divine stillness 
seems to rest over all the world. We feel an 
unwonted and indescribable peace which lifts us 
above our petty selves to the larger Self of eter- 
nal restfulness which nature's calm suggests. 
We almost worship nature at such a time, so 
near it brings us to the Spirit which imbues 
the very vibrations of the atmosphere. Again, 
when standing near some grand mountain, or 
when looking far into the clouds at sunset, we 
seem to perceive the strength and the vanishing 
glory of him who is almost revealed to our long- 
ing eyes, yet forever remains beyond our keenest 
vision. 

And, if we push our analysis still farther, do 
we not discover that all that is best and dearest 
in human life, all that is most useful in nature, 
is like this retreating beauty of a soft landscape: 
the mechanism is visible, but the beauty is of 
the mind? I saw my friend, you say. Yet you 



2 9 

only saw his face, not his soul, just as you see 
the world, but not the Life which animates it. 
You feel love, you use wisdom, you reap the 
inner benefits of goodness; but all is intangible. 
No one ever saw force : we see and make use of 
its effects. Yet no one doubts its existence. 
We know it through its manifestations. And 
some affirm that there is no dense material, 
simply varied modes of motion of one infinite 
force, of one underlying Reality; while other 
philosophers describe the universe as a system 
of ideas produced in us by the great Reality 
behind all phenomena. Whatever the ultimate 
nature of matter may be, and this is a question 
which we cannot profitably discuss here, it is 
evident that the Reality is somehow made known 
to us. No one denies it, yet no one ever saw 
it; so intimate is the association between mo- 
tion and that which moves, between cause and 
effect. 

The retreating beauty of nature, then, seems 
typical of our deepest associations with the 
Father, a union to which Emerson has given 
the best expression in his "Over-Soul." We 
are conscious of the human part; and, when in 
times of sorrow we seem comforted from on 
high, we are dimly aware of the divine. Yet 
we cannot grasp it : we can only affirm that God 
resides in and is the source of our being, just as 



3o 

the grandeur of nature resides in a landscape 
whose beauty we can never locate. Take love, 
take wisdom, start with any quality in human 
life which points to a common nature, and, trac- 
ing it to its source, one's thought is lost in con- 
templation of the great Reality which must be 
all these qualities, since there could be but one 
perfect love and wisdom, which all share in 
greater or lesser degree, just as surely as the 
force with which I move my arm is related to 
the power which, from all time, has caused the 
planets to revolve and the infinite series of 
causes and effects to be active. 

Were we not thus a part of the one omni- 
present Reality, there would then be some place 
where the Reality does not exist; and it would 
not then be omnipresent. Unless our activity 
is due ultimately to the one life, then there is 
an existence independent of it; and this we have 
proved impossible. Our consciousness, our life, 
our intelligence, must blend with the infinite 
life and consciousness; and this larger life 
must therefore be all of yet more than our own. 
Since this Reality is omnipresent, and is the 
sum total of all that exists, we must be part of 
it in order to exist at all, and as dependent on it 
as the plant on the sunlight. And, since it 
must be conscious in order to be aware of its 
own existence, it must know us as a part of 



31 

itself. Thus, then, there is no escape from the 
conclusion that we are part of the great Reality, 
or God, that we reveal him when we truly love 
and serve and are really wise, that he knows us 
as a part of himself, that we have no power 
wholly our own, and that we do not exist apart 
from, but as a part of, this great Over-Soul. 

In such a realization as this, that we blend in 
consciousness and in love with the ever-renew- 
ing Life, and that we reveal more and more of 
the divine nature as we ascend in the scale of 
being, lies a real way of escape from morbid 
self-interest, introspection, self-consciousness, 
want of confidence, and the feeling of one's own 
insignificance. To know that our highest love, 
our deepest thought, our truest self, is not 
wholly our own, but, in so far as it is unself- 
ish, is divine, — this it is to have something in 
which we can trust and on which we can rely, 
which shows us what we are, not as weak human 
beings which we vainly try to understand by 
self-analysis, but what we are as particles of the 
divine nature. Thus the painful thought is lost 
in the consciousness of divine nearness, just as 
though a particle of sunlight should become 
aware of its relation to all sunlight and to the 
sun. And what a pleasure it is to view nature 
and human life with an ever-deepening con- 
sciousness of this divine background! Truly, 



32 

there is no time for complaint, or even for suf- 
fering, so far as suffering is self-caused, if we 
dwell in this pure region of thought, where 
we look upon the good and true as an outburst 
of the divine, and all else as slowly evolving 
toward this realm of goodness, where the land- 
scape suggests the beauty which it so well typi- 
fies, and where our own hardships lead us, not 
into the realm of complaint, but into the land of 
inquiry, of genuine desire to know what God is 
doing with us. 

But the question still remains, How can the 
infinite become finite? How can a perfect God 
know imperfect man, with all his woes and 
struggles? Why should he create? The answer 
is contained in what we have already said con- 
cerning the one Reality. 

Continuity of motion is one of the attributes 
of that Reality, the activity of which originates 
within itself, and is never self-destructive. 
Eternal self-interaction is the cause of eternal 
self-manifestation. The Reality has therefore 
never been without manifestation. Although it 
is the One, it must ever have been the Many : it 
must ever have been at once finite and infinite, 
since it is not simply an undivided whole, but is 
the sum of all its parts, each one of which, like 
the figures i, 2, 3, is finite. Motion could not 



33 

spring suddenly out of a perfectly simple, inert 
unit. Even an ultimate cause must be substan- 
tial and active from eternity, and have some- 
thing on which to act. We need not then try to 
conceive the beginning of this universe, for it 
never had a beginning except in its transitory 
aspects. Nor need we conceive a motive for the 
first manifestation of the one Reality, since 
it could not exist without manifestation; and 
whatever appears is at once a part of itself and 
an outgrowth of that which has actively existed 
throughout eternity. 

The One is the sum total of all possibilities: 
it is eternally the Many, either actually or po- 
tentially. If it be actually the Many, then 
there is always somewhere all possible forms of 
manifestation. If the One be only potentially 
the Many, then we are bound to conceive it as 
progressively manifested in a world-order like 
our own, and must expect a continuance of the 
series until the whole has been expressed in 
finite form. The One, then, must ever have 
been perfect in every possible sense of the word, 
but only perfect through its transcendent unify- 
ing of the Many, either immediately or progres- 
sively making itself known to itself, and thereby 
giving the One an eternal object. 

Put in more familiar phraseology, Could a 
perfect being exist without some object of his 



34 

love and wisdom, without some manifestation 
whereby he should know himself? And, if God 
is perfect intelligence, does he not know all 
possibilities, both of divine and of human ac- 
tion? Is he not present in the very struggles 
and conflicts which we try so hard to reconcile 
with his unfailing love? 

Unless some change take place, even in a per- 
fect universe there could be no object of divine 
knowledge; and, if a change take place, there 
must be some consciousness of it. Further- 
more, an infinite being would at least have a 
desire to know itself, to vary its pure monoto- 
nous self-consciousness; and, unless it had such 
a desire, it could never become perfect, since it 
must want to know itself not only through its 
foreseeing intuition, but through the realization 
of its own foresight, through self-experience and 
manifestation of all its attributes. 

The infinite Self, or God, must, then, have 
thought and desire, or some form of conscious- 
ness transcending what we denote by these 
words. He must reveal and know himself part 
by part, as the finite, as the world, as man, in 
human love and aspiration, in order to know his 
total self. For, if we have come into being un- 
necessarily, then some other god rules, and not 
the all-wise Father in whom we believe, and 
who seems to need us. The very effort to be 



35 

rational, the act of self-knowledge, consists in 
separating off some portion of the infinite in 
such manner that it shall represent a phase of 
the total life. And are we not just such differ- 
ing aspects of a common nature, with our varied 
temperaments and our diverse ideas? 

Since, then, the infinitely self-conscious Real- 
ity includes within itself all possibilities of 
thought and action, before its boundless con- 
templation must pass all that could ever be 
thought. God must see the outcome of all these 
thoughts, were they to be objectified in outer 
life, with all the suffering involved, and then 
chooses, if we admit the possibility that our 
world-order might have differed from the present 
system, and fixes upon the system which he pro- 
ceeds to realize. He must, then, know of our 
petty lives and our suffering, our longings and 
what they mean, or else we are greater than the 
cause that produced us. He must have all in- 
telligence, all power, since whatever exists, that 
is he. He must surely have chosen the world- 
order which should most fully reveal his wish 
and nature; and, if that nature is one of perfect 
and unchanging wisdom and unending love, it 
follows that the universe was brought forth in 
love, and that it is the best possible world- 
order. It follows, also, that this plan of mani- 
festation cannot be altered, since it reveals the 



36 

nature of the only Reality that could ever exist, 
since nothing could change that Reality, and 
since it possessed and put all wisdom into a 
plan which otherwise would have defeated its 
object. There must, then, be a will or purpose 
in this world-order. For, if it had no purpose, 
it was called forth by a non-intelligent reality, 
it is simply mechanical, evolution has no deep 
meaning, our desire for reasons is without a 
basis, and there is no reality which includes our 
intelligence, and we have misinterpreted nature 
when we deemed it the product of intelligence. 

In order, then, to grasp this wholeness of 
relationship of the great world-order, let us 
once more adopt the imperfect figures of human 
speech, and conceive this Reality as an infinitely 
wise, an all-loving, all-containing, all-animat- 
ing Thinker, in whose comprehension the shin- 
ing worlds of space and the tiniest atoms 
whereof matter is made are grouped in one 
transcendently perfect system of self-realization ; 
through whose measured reflection are evolved 
planets such as our own, unvarying in their law 
because he is unchangeable, requiring ages of 
time because his reflection is measured and sure, 
definite in shape and known to us as matter be- 
cause his purpose is rational, and because reason 
consists in establishing bounds, and through 



37 

whose tender care we are led onward to con- 
scious union in thought and deed with his pur- 
pose for us. Our earth, then, is a part of the 
great rational life of God. It has its definite 
orbit and a definite history; it follows unchang- 
ing laws just because it is part of a thoroughly 
rational life. It is distinct from other spheres 
of the infinite activity, just because its history 
fulfils a purpose, and is therefore moral. It is 
finite, because it is a part only of this morally 
rational life. And so, let me repeat, with you 
and me. We are expressions of the infinite 
life, yet are finite just because the all-seeing 
intelligence means one thing in your life, and 
something else in mine. We are imperfect, 
incomplete, because we join with others to form 
his meaning; and^he has not yet reflected our 
lives to their perfect conclusion, -i- a process 
which we are confident he will complete, though 
it take eternity. 

Such a figure as this, the relation of a thinker 
to his progressive system of thoughts, seems 
most nearly to approximate the nearness which 
human speech can barely suggest. I am trying 
to show that God knows us, even though we fail 
to know him, that he has a purpose with us 
which he is even now executing, that he is the 
completing Sell without which our lives have 
little meaning, the knower and the known, the 



38 

thinker and the thoughts, the builder and the 
built, the sustainer and the love which sus- 
tains, the limiter whose will we know as fate, 
and as matter, without whom we are as naught, 
with whom as gods. 

In those rarest moments of human life when 
the soul, in the peaceful isolation of the woods, 
by the sea, or in the quiet of the library, is 
lifted above itself and made aware of its kinship 
with the Father, have you not been conscious of 
just such relationship as this? Has not God 
seemed for the moment to belong to you alone, 
as though in the unsearchable depth of his love 
he lived for you? Yet were you not conscious 
that the Spirit which then moved you to silence 
is the same which speaks throughout the count- 
less spheres of the universe? What a divine 
joy would life be could we always maintain this 
consciousness of the inner presence! But are 
we not apt to forget this nearness, to fear, to 
worry, and to act as though we were independent 
of the great Reality, the all-seeing Father, with- 
out whom we could not be? 

The present paper is simply an attempt to 
lend system to these rare moments of uplifting, 
that we may become more conscious of the 
divine inflow. /And what is life for, in the 
deepest sense, if it be not to bring us to con- 
sciousness of its source and its import^ Is it 



39 

not in our moments of earnest thought, when we 
reflect on experience and learn its meaning, that 
we grow? And, if mankind were judged on the 
basis of real worth, would not so much avail as 
we really are as thinking, helpful souls, — that 
part of us which, as we hope, survives all 
change ? 

Man may be called a point of energy, a centre 
of application of divine Power. His conscious- 
ness, his will, if he be aware of his eternal 
birthright, is a vantage-point whence the infinite 
Thinker views the world and thereby knows 
himself. But the infinite Self seems to act 
through the majority of men almost by force, for 
they seem unaware of his presence. They are 
moved in throngs, and spurred along by suffer- 
ing, because in their shortsightedness they fear 
and oppose the moving which is for their deepest 
good. As Emerson puts it, "We are used as 
brute atoms until we think, then we use all the 
rest." Yet, if this world-order is the best pos- 
sible order, the love of God must be just as 
clearly manifested in the struggles which carry 
us along until we think as in our moments of 
repose. It is character that avails, that seems 
to be the purpose of our contests ; and character 
is the result of determined effort to surmount 
the obstacles we are compelled to meet until we 
learn to live above our troubles. The experi- 



40 

ences of evil and suffering seem justified by 
their outcome, since we should know nothing 
without experience. 

Without contrast and comparison we could 
not interpret experience. Without darkness and 
evil we should not know light and good, even if 
we were perfect at the start, since our perfec- 
tion, like that of a God without manifestation, 
would simply be an unrealized ideal. It is the 
one who has lived and suffered, conquered, 
thought, and practised his own truest wisdom, 
who moves with fate. He is no longer as one 
among thousands, but himself a mover, a sharer 
of power, co-operating in intelligent companion- 
ship with the Father. Then dawns the Christ- 
consciousness, with its accompanying life of 
self-sacrifice; and the faithful soul enjoys a 
personal relationship with God, whom he now 
knows through actual experience to be literally 
the All. 

But our realization of the immanence of God 
must do more for us than simply to furnish a 
rational and intuitive basis for belief in an 
omnipresent Reality. A lasting benefit and 
mental freedom come from systematic thinking 
about life, as well as a measure of inner repose 
when we have pushed through doubt to settled 
conviction. But the real test of faith comes in 



41 

moments of trouble and periods of discourage- 
ment and sickness. If we say that we believe 
in God, and then worry, doubt, and fear, and 
return to our selfish life, then we do not yet 
know the omnipresent Comforter./ To act as 
though we really believed that God is in his 
world, in our own souls, concerned in our daily 
experiences, and ready to strengthen us in any 
need whatsoever, — this is a genuine test of 
faith. To lift our thoughts to him habitually, 
not periodically, as if we really expected to get 
health and help from him, instead of asking for 
the impossible, — this is genuine prayer. 

Do we put our faith to such a test? Do we 
try to trust God fully, understandingly, with a 
deep conviction that it is his life, his power, 
that is pressing upon us through what we call 
the remedial forces of nature, through the very 
life of the body ? Do we wait for guidance 
when we are perplexed? Do we try to see the 
divine meaning, the outcome of our experience 
as an integrant part of a great world-experience? 
Do we let this life come as it may from the di- 
vine source, without rebellion, without doubt, 
carrying before us an ever-renewed ideal of our- 
selves as happy, useful, in good health, every 
day in our experience having some meaning in 
the divine economy? Do we turn from matter 
to the Reality behind it : from the body to the 



4 2 

soul that moulds it, now in this fashion, now in 
that, by the power of thought; from the ills 
which seem so real while we dwell upon them 
to the inner self which can become so strong 
that we shall have no ills whatever except those 
which are essential to our truest evolution ? 

I am not asking these questions from the 
point of view of some ideal theory. There are 
earnest souls who make this practical realization 
of the immanence of God the basis of a system 
of healing at once removed from all formulas 
of suggestion, assertion, denial, and from all 
methods of physical cure. To such the over- 
whelming power which accompanies this reali- 
zation and the desire to help the sufferer is 
everlasting evidence of its truth. And all hyp- 
notic processes would be as superfluous as they 
would be irreverent in the presence of this 
divine power, alike inspiring humility and confi- 
dence in its renewing strength. 

Nor am I advocating mere religious faith in 
God, or an easy-going optimism which assures 
us that somehow all will come out well. I am 
pleading, first, for a scientific interpretation of 
the world ; secondly, for a conception of an 
underlying Reality, an indwelling Spirit, large 
enough to give continuous life to this world; 
and, finally, for wise adjustment to and intel- 
ligent co-operation with the impulses which 



43 

spring from this indwelling life. I advocate 
that interpretation of life which places the re- 
sponsibility largely on ourselves, which teaches 
us not to lean on systems of thought and on 
people in whom we believe and whom we permit 
to do our thinking for us, but encourages us to 
look within and to find in our own souls an 
ever-present resource. 

( Deep within every human soul there is a dor- 
mant intuition which, if it be quickened, will 
guide us, as unerringly as the instinct of the 
dove, to our centre, to our home in God. There 
are those who, aware of this divine instinct, 
await its word and rely on its guidance with just 
as much assurance as the most ardent believers 
in science await her profound conclusions. 
They make almost no plans, but look upon the 
task which comes to them to do as bearing some 
relation to the great life of the All. Their 
faith is based on accurate and long-continued 
observation of the phenomena of the inner life, 
on oft-repeated proof that help and guidance are 
ready for those who listen confidently and recep- 
tively. Is there not a possibility here, an ever- 
present yet universally neglected resource, ca- 
pable of bringing such usefulness and joy into 
existence as we have never dreamed of? 

It seems unbusinesslike to await impressions, 
to trust. Yet the merest reflection proves that 



44 

all life reposes on trust. The reputation of a 
business house can be ruined in an hour, if its 
standing be seriously questioned and the report 
be noised about. With all that science has told 
us about nature's laws, we are still compelled to 
take the world on trust. We fall quietly asleep 
at night, believing that the day will dawn to- 
morrow, that no calamity will befall our world, 
that it will be safe to depend on nature's forces. 
Nature has never deceived us, and we believe 
she never will. Yet we do not know what may 
happen. We run a thousand risks each day, in 
the streets, in the cars, everywhere, with perfect 
composure. Can we not carry our trust a bit 
farther and understand that on which we should 
rely, and not only rely upon it, but call upon it 
for aid? Is God less watchful, is he any less 
present in the realm where thought controls and 
leads us into fear and dis-ease or into trust and 
composure, according to our direction of mind? 
If gravitation holds the earth in its position in 
space, may it not be that its spiritual counter- 
part, the love of God, sustains our souls in their 
progress, and provides for us in ways which we 
have scarcely suspected? Yet how many of 
those who say, God is love, stop to realize 
the world of meaning in that little sentence? 
There is healing and comfort in such realization. 
Let me suggest it briefly in closing. 



45 

The omnipresent Reality, or immanent God, 
must love the world he has brought forth to re- 
veal him, and therefore must appreciate and love 
you and me as parts of it. He must have caused 
it to evolve from love or desire, for otherwise he 
would have been compelled to cause its exist- 
ence. Had he been compelled against his will, 
the existence of a compeller would be implied; 
and this is impossible, since there is but one 
Reality. Since he is the All, he is all the love 
there is; and, since he must of necessity reveal 
himself in order to have an object of his inex- 
pressible devotion, he must have put himself 
forth in love. And, if he brought us here in 
love, he must care for our continued welfare, 
since he is unchangeable. If he cares for us, he 
must have had a loving purpose in causing us to 
exist; for he was not compelled to bring us into 
being. He is all-wise, and could not have 
brought us here without knowing his own pur- 
pose. No one can defeat his purpose since 
he alone exists. His purpose cannot be self- 
destructive, nor can he wish us harm, since he 
called us forth in love. If he loves us, he must 
be with us, since a distant God is impossible, 
and would be cold and unfeeling, while the true 
God is our larger, our diviner self, nearer to us 
than thought, closer than thought can imagine. 
His relation to us must ever be intimate, since 



4 6 

there is no power, no substance, no space, to 
separate us. Therefore we are not in any sense 
apart from him. We exist with him in a rela- 
tionship typified by that of a child in its 
mother's arms. He is our Father, though infi- 
nite in power and wisdom. Nothing can pre- 
vent us from enjoying his love, his help, his 
peace, his inspiring guidance, but our own fail- 
ure to recognize his presence. Let us, then, be 
still and know his love, his indwelling presence. 
Let us test it fully, and learn what it will do for 
us if we never worry, never fear, never reach out 
and away from this present life. Let us absorb 
from his love as the plant absorbs from the sun- 
light; for our spirits, like the plants, need daily 
nourishment. 

Can we estimate the value of such quieting 
reflection as this, if it be renewed day by day? 
Sometimes a text of Scripture, a poem, or a 
piece of soft music, will bring it to us. Some- 
times we must seek the solitude of nature ere 
the Spirit come; for it is the Spirit that is the 
essential, and not, I insist, any form of words, 
or assertions, or suggestions. Silently and un- 
observed, the Spirit will breathe upon us if we 
reflect, if we wait for it in stillness day by day. 
It will not come if we doubt, if we fear, or — 
note this especially — if our own thought be too 
active; for the Spirit never intrudes. It lets us 



47 

go our own way if we choose : it comes, we 
know not how, if we trust. \A11 it asks is re- 
ceptive listening., Then all an unselfish human 
being would wisely ask is ours. 

It steals into our consciousness when we think 
deeply, to guide, to strengthen, to heal, to en- 
courage. The great secret of life is to know 
how, in our own way, to be receptive to it, how 
to read the message of its inner whispering. 
The sure method of growing strong in realiza- 
tion of its nearness is to believe it will come if 
we listen, to trust it in moments of doubt as the 
lost hunter trusts his horse in the forest, to have 
an ideal outlook, and then renew our realization 
day by day, ever remembering that, as this 
Spirit is the only Reality, the one power, the 
one love, we live in it, and with it, and there is 
naught to separate us from its ever-watchful 
care, its ever-loving presence. 



III. 

THE WORLD OF MANIFESTATION. 

One grand truth is evident at every point in 
the foregoing discussion : Every atom, every 
event, every soul in the universe, is imbued with 
the immanent Presence; and life is a constant 
sharing of its power. Whatever be the start- 
ing-point in our interpretation of experience, 
whether in some truth of human reason, some 
cherished insight of the inner life, or in some 
simple fact of the outer world, there is no logi- 
cal stopping-place short of absolute certainty 
that God exists as the one all-inclusive, omni- 
present Reality. We may evade the point or 
deviate into agnosticism, through undue regard 
to the limitations of finite consciousness; but 
our own deepest nature is never satisfied until 
we make the escape into the Universal. Once 
free, the conclusion seems a necessity of thought, 
at once satisfactory, convincing, and unanswera- 
ble. It holds true for all time. It is the prop- 
erty of all who think, and lies latent in every 
fact of life, suggesting a wonderful broadening 
and deepening of human experience when this 



49 

one greatest truth shall become a permanent 
factor in our daily thought. 

The temptation is strong to turn at once to a 
consideration of that daily thought, and to ask, 
What is man? But, if we are to understand 
man in the light of his entire origin, we must 
still continue to study him in relation to his en- 
vironment. Mental states are more apt to be 
deceptive than physical. One is inclined to 
read too much in them, and to draw erroneous 
conclusions. If we are to conceive the inner 
life in accurate terms, we must take our start far 
within the limits of the well-known outer world. 
We shall then have a firm basis on which to rest 
the more important superstructure. And, if we 
keep the realization of God's immanence ever 
before us, the discussion will not seem dry. 
We have already found it convenient to make 
certain distinctions in order to add intelligibil- 
ity and vividness to our conception of God, and 
the beauty of the conception which thus grew 
upon us was its inclusiveness. We lost no 
deeply cherished conviction in thinking of him 
as the one omnipresent Reality. We shall only 
add to our deepening knowledge of him in con- 
sidering him as the basis of his own well-ordered 
world of manifestation, if we remember that 
every part of it is instinct with his life. 

We have concluded that in the nature of God 



5o 

as the only Reality lies the necessary reason for 
the existence of our world and of our individual 
selves; for he must be infinitely self-conscious, 
he must have self-expression, in order to have 
an object for that boundless love which we 
believe him to possess. He is therefore both 
subject and object, both the knower and the 
known, the transcendent Whole, the immanent 
Life made known through the parts, and the 
varied universe through which he is partly 
perceived. 

Moreover, this double aspect of the One is 
repeated throughout the universe of the many; 
and by tracing it out we shall find a practical 
solution to many vital problems. The world of 
manifestation becomes for finite beings a uni- 
verse of mind and matter, apparently dissimilar 
in their nature, yet in reality identical in the 
One in whose transcendence their unity is hid- 
den. The relation of God to matter is therefore 
just as intimate as his relation to the human 
soul, for whatever exists is a part of and within 
the one Reality. We cannot, then, consistently 
deny the existence of matter. To make such a 
denial is equivalent to asserting the non-exist- 
ence of the one Reality, and therefore of our 
sensations, since all that we experience has some 
cause outside ourselves; and we know our own 
existence only as it is related to this outer Real- 



ity. Matter surely exists. Mind exists. How 
they are related in consciousness we shall soon 
consider. But we must begin with matter as 
a real existence, as a part of God, imbued with 
his immanent life, and in no sense independent 
of him. The one Reality must be the basis and 
substance, and the only basis and substance, of 
all that we call matter, just as truly as it is the 
Life that is active in every moment and in every 
incident of our inmost being. 

It is undeniable that the world of matter 
which you and I contemplate may have no exter- 
nal existence precisely as we perceive it. Sci- 
ence tells me that certain ether waves impinge 
on my retina, and form an image of some exter- 
nal object, which in turn is translated into an 
idea, and interpreted according to my education. 
Certain other rays indirectly produce ideas in 
your mind, and are interpreted according to your 
education. The outer object may be the same 
in both cases; but the ideas caused by it may be 
quite different, owing to our different states of 
mind. I never see exactly the same object 
which you contemplate, nor do either of us as 
minds actually see the object at all, since we 
know the object by means of ideas. We are un- 
able even to dissociate the actual sensation and 
the perception based on a lifetime of experience 
and thought by which we interpret it. Nor do 



52 

we hear the same sound, perceive the same 
colors, nor smell the same odors. But the exist- 
ence of something real which causes the sensa- 
tions no one can seriously question. Even an 
uninterpreted sensation makes us partially aware 
of something not ourselves. We may be scien- 
tifically aware that the sensation is in and not 
outside of our minds, and that we interpret it 
through ideas; but the object that produces the 
sensation is not necessarily an idea. When the 
hand encounters a masonry wall, we are sure of 
the existence of an external force which meets 
and effectually withstands all the pressure we 
are able to exert. There is no room for doubt 
here. 

Nor can we question the existence of accurate 
knowledge about the outer world. The chain of 
causes running back into infinity with which this 
discussion began is such a fact of certain knowl- 
edge. We know that certain effects will be pro- 
duced on us under certain conditions, — for 
example, putting the hand into a fire. These 
outer conditions are there just the same, regard- 
less of any interpretation of ours. Our interpre- 
tation may or may not correspond to the facts 
and explain the relations of objects. We did 
not create those conditions nor arrange objects in 
certain relations. They are independent of all 
minds. There must then be certain actual rela- 



53 

tions existing between objects and external to us 
which cause in us our definite experiences; for 
instance, of the alternation of day and night, the 
sensations of heat and cold, the experience of 
cause and effect, the reign of law, and the suc- 
cessive conditions of evolution. But, if they 
are actual relations, they must be qualities of 
the one Reality. They must be characteristics 
of his world of manifestation, since nothing real 
can exist independent of him. If, therefore, we 
study them, if we study nature and natural law 
as expressions of the very consciousness, the 
very reason, the very life of God, we shall not 
be stopped by materialism, we shall not be 
weighed down by matter, but ever draw nearer 
and nearer to the Spirit behind it. 

Matter, then, is not a mere phenomenon, any 
more than is the mind that partially knows it. 
Ultimately it is a real substance. It is part 
of the one enduring Reality, the cause or series 
of causes of the world of sense-experience. It 
is the real substance partially perceived and 
judged according to our opinions and tempera- 
ment : it is the means whereby we contemplate 
the One. Reality is both the universe as God 
knows it and the God who knows it. As matter, 
it is his meaning, his purpose made manifest: 
it is God realizing himself in definite form, the 
tangible expression of his purpose holding man 



54 

in the straight and narrow pathway of progress, 
the Spirit put in limited form so that we can 
grasp it. 

But enough of the abstract. If there is now 
no possibility of misunderstanding the point of 
view of this book in regard to the existence of 
matter, we are ready to consider those qualities 
of matter the understanding of which is most 
essential to what follows. The full bearing of 
this driest part of our inquiry will not be evi- 
dent until the last chapter. We shall then see 
how the best known facts of the outer world 
clarify the vaguer facts of the inner life, and 
reveal the secret of self-help. 

Our first experiences in life are fragmentary 
sensations from this outer world. That the world 
is shrouded in manifold illusions is evident from 
the very outset. The infant has no sense of dis- 
tance, and some people spend a lifetime without 
learning to judge accurately of certain distances 
on sea and land. There is no sense of the rela- 
tion of things and events until the understand- 
ing has again and again been called into play. 
Thus sensation in time becomes perception, and 
the mind plays a part of increasing importance 
and value in our daily life. We strike a wall, 
and feel a jarring sensation. We go out into 
the sunlight, and feel a sense of warmth. As 



55 

experience widens and our convictions become 
more mature, we associate these experiences, 
distinguish between cause and effect, and de- 
duce from their invariable sequence a statement 
called a law. We affirm that, "As a man sows, 
so shall he reap," that nothing happens without 
a natural cause. Yet we are apt to forget our 
own generalizations; and the fact that men still 
sin, still cherish anger, uncharitable and unfor- 
giving thoughts, shows that the majority of men 
are suffering for just this simple knowledge 
that action and reaction are equal, that no event 
happens uncaused. 

Now, Science does not forget; and among her 
numerous generalizations there are four of par- 
ticular value in our present discussion. 

I. The fragmentary events of life have been 
reduced to a system. Nature is not a mere 
chaos, in which conflicting forces eternally war 
upon each other, but is an order, a unit, a whole, 
in which part is adjusted to part, like one vast 
mechanism. Law everywhere reigns supreme. 
There are no eternally warring forces, for all 
force is one. We think of heat, light, electric- 
ity, vital energy, as so many separate forces. 
Yet they can be transmuted into each other. 
One force revealed in varying modes of motion 
gives rise to all the events in the great mechan- 
ism. Science only waits to know what this 



56 

force is, in order to understand the secret of the 
universe. 

2. In our early experience we are apt to think 
of matter as dead or inert. Science shows us 
that it is everywhere alive and nowhere inert, 
not even in the great rock foundations of our 
earth. It is probably molecular in structure: it is 
composed of little moving particles in a constant 
state of rapid vibration, and separated from each 
other like the stars and planets. It exists in a 
series of forms and substances ranging from the 
hard granite through less compact forms, solids, 
liquids, gases, and the attenuated nerve-tissues 
which approach the nature of mind. Further- 
more, a single substance — for instance, water — 
passes successively through the three states of 
solid, liquid, and vapor, the integration and dis- 
integration of matter in various forms being one 
of the most striking phenomena of material life. 
Even the earth's atmosphere has recently been 
reduced to liquid and solid forms. The chemi- 
cal process called combustion is capable of lib- 
erating in an incredibly short space of time all 
the solid materials of a vast wooden building, 
and transforming them into so many invisible 
gases, leaving only a heap of ashes to attest the 
ruin. Nothing is stable in material form, noth- 
ing can resist the subtle, invisible manifestations 
of the one force, interpenetrating the particles 



57 

of matter, setting them into rapid vibration or 
causing them to appear and disappear in ever- 
varying combinations. 

This may be illustrated by putting large shot 
into a receptacle until it be filled. There will 
still be spaces for smaller and smaller shot, then 
for a liquid, and finally for a gas. The chemist, 
starting with a liquid, — for instance, water in 
an air-tight jar, — and heating it to the form of 
steam until it fills the jar, may still repeat the 
process by adding alcohol, raising that to a 
vapor, then adding ether, and so on, showing 
that there are still unfilled spaces between the 
molecules which finer substances and forces 
might occupy. 

The same is obviously true of the human 
body. We may first consider it as a unit, then 
as a collection of organs, an aggregation of mi- 
nute cells, and a system of microscopic molecules. 
No bone is so dense but it may be penetrated, 
no space so fine between the particles that the 
particles may not be drawn closer together or be 
thrown wider apart without disturbing the unity 
of the body. 

We are well aware of expansion and contrac- 
tion due to heat and cold. The muscles become 
tense under the power of a sudden emotion. They 
are relaxed and expanded in a state of repose. 
In the child the muscles are moved quickly and 



58 

easily, without stiffness and other restrictions, 
and while the muscles are active the health is 
generally good. In old age partial ossification 
takes place, and the currents of the body can no 
longer circulate freely. Density and contraction 
occur in many cases of disease; and the problem 
is simply to drive the particles farther apart, to 
break up the density, just as the block of ice is 
transformed into the less dense condition of 
water. Everywhere in nature there is expansion 
and contraction, due fundamentally to the driv- 
ing apart or the drawing together of molecules 
and atoms. The radiation of the sun's energy is 
just such a driving apart, while the moon is cold 
and contracted from loss of heat. The sun's 
energy is once more concentrated in the form of 
organic life, and is taken into the body to be 
expanded and assimilated, but not until it has 
once again been put in motion by the power of 
heat. Heat is the medium of chemical change, 
and many of our misinterpreted sensations called 
disease are simply due to this natural expansive 
power breaking up some dense obstruction 
or inharmony in the body. A corresponding 
change, accompanied by a sensation of heat, 
takes place in the brain when for some reason 
considerable power is called into a certain 
region. 

The principle is fundamental. We shall find 



59 

it of great use in the concluding chapter; for 
there we shall see how the subtler forces of 
thought act on matter, causing it to expand or 
contract, because it can penetrate the finest 
spaces. Probably the law of composition is the 
same in all cases; and the particles, if such 
exist, in the purest grade of substance are capa- 
ble of penetrating any and all other substances 
or forces. It may be in this way that Spirit is 
supreme, using and revealing itself through all 
lower forms, making itself known to the very 
lowest, not by jumps, but by insensible degrees, 
so that there shall be no break in the divine con- 
tinuity and no separation between the transcend- 
ent Spirit, its going forth as the immanent Life 
and its manifestation through that in which it 
dwells. 

3. But nature is not only a law-governed unit, 
a mechanism animated by a single force, in 
which the varying substances are composed of 
minute particles. It is also a live organism, in 
which each part, each organ, pulsating with 
energy and instinct with life, has some meaning 
as related to the whole. Of this great unitary 
organism, throbbing with life from star to atom, 
man is an integrant part. He is related to it so 
closely that he seems in fact the central figure, 
whose life was prophesied from the very dawn 
of being. History, religion, science, literature, 



6o 

present this relationship in a thousand different 
lights; and now a new science of sociology and 
ethics is taking shape in men's minds, showing 
that society is also an organism in which each 
man owes some duty to his human brotherhood. 

To make this relationship perfectly clear, 
think for a moment what this great natural sys- 
tem means. In an organism no part is complete 
in itself, but supplements and depends on all the 
other parts. No part can in itself be perfect, 
since it would then be a separate organism. 
The cog-wheel may be perfectly constructed, a 
truly wonderful contrivance; yet it is useless 
unless it fit in exactly to some machine which 
is incomplete without it. The musical note, 
however pure, has no meaning for us unless it 
be sounded in unison with others. 

The same is true of man. He cannot live in 
isolation. He is not good alone. He must 
have a particular gift or occupation, in order that 
perfection may at least be approximated by the 
whole. He is a dependent being, and in turn 
contributes his little share of benefit. Count- 
less ages elapsed ere he could exist at all, and 
every one of the innumerable hosts that preceded 
him lived and struggled that he might be born. 
From those who labor day by day come the food, 
the clothing, and the homes which make con- 
tinued life possible. Numberless thousands of 



6i 

minds have thought out and formulated that 
which to-day constitutes our knowledge of art, 
science, history, literature, and philosophy; and 
the largest contribution to our knowledge made 
by a single mind seems wonderfully small, our 
own original thought infinitesimally smaller. 
Each of these incidental forces in the worlds 
of nature, of society and thought, about which 
we think so rarely, contributes its share to 
the shifting series of experiences called life, 
each plays its part in the great organism; and 
there would seem to be no just system of knowl- 
edge which does not consider them all, no logi- 
cal stopping-place short of universal religion, 
universal ethics, a deep love for and co-operation 
with the brotherhood of man. 

4. The most important truth remains. This 
beautifully organized thing of life, with its won- 
derful law-governed parts and its co-operation of 
beings and things, was not made suddenly or out 
of hand. It has grown out of that which eter- 
nally existed. Slowly, as the seed matures in 
the ground and prepares the way for the burst- 
ing bud and the blooming plant, everything in 
nature, so far as we know, from the raising of 
continents to the development of man, has taken 
place and reached its present condition by in- 
sensible degrees. To-day is the product of yes- 
terday, and yesterday of the day before, and so on 



62 

indefinitely. Each cause is the effect of another 
cause more remote. The life of the tree comes 
from the sun millions of miles away, but it 
comes through something. Its energy is stored 
up in the organic and inorganic materials imme- 
diately surrounding the tree, and through the heat 
and light transformed from the solar rays by the 
earth's atmosphere. The immediate environ- 
ment, ancestry, and experience give rise to all 
living things; and all life finds its origin in 
a single omnipresent source. Evolution is the 
only law yet discovered which in any way ac- 
counts for the origin of our world. When one 
pauses to consider what this law is as a universal 
principle, it becomes evident that there could be 
no other. 

Yet it is easy to misunderstand this principle. 
To many evolution simply means the derivation 
of man from some lost ancestor, a belief which 
generally arouses a feeling of repugnance; or it 
means that the existence of God is not necessary 
under this theory, and one naturally lays it aside 
as irreligious. Yet evolution would be of little 
value if it were not a universal law, just as well 
exemplified in the growth of the tree as in the 
development of new species or of a planet from 
a mass of nebula. It would have no ultimate 
meaning unless it proved the presence of God at 
every step in the great world process. 



63 

In the foregoing chapter we have seen that the 
whole problem is immensely simplified by the 
knowledge that all life is immanent, that 
the activity of beings and things is due to 
the power resident in that which lives and 
grows. 

If God is immanent in one portion of the uni- 
verse, he must be immanent in all. If he gives 
rise to a world and its people, he must be with 
the world in order for it to endure. This much 
is clear: it only remains to discover, as far as 
possible, the series or gradations of power and 
substance whereby Spirit makes itself known 
to and revealed as the lowest forms of being, and 
to note the successive stages through which all 
beings pass in their upward growth. 

This latter task is the work of natural science; 
and year by year her workers are collecting 
evidence, classifying facts, inquiring into the 
causes of variation, the influence of environ- 
ment, the effect of use and disuse, the transmis- 
sion of acquired variations, and all other prob- 
lems connected with development. Every fact 
makes our knowledge of the immanent God more 
secure. Every datum supplies a link in the in- 
finite series of causes and effects, a series prob- 
ably no less systematic than the mathematical 
series from one to a thousand, from a thousand 
to a million, in which not one figure can be 



64 

omitted. Every factor plays its inevitable part. 
Every step bears some relation to its anteced- 
ent and its consequent. And all facts, all 
forces, all events, are related to the entire uni- 
verse of to-day, of yesterday, of eternity. There 
is no break in nature's organism, but one con- 
tinuous series of closely related events. There 
are no jumps, but only the gradual unfolding, 
when it is ready, of all that is involved in the 
budding organism. 

One need only observe the social and political 
changes going on to-day, class contending with 
class and party with party, in order to discover 
every aspect of this universal principle. We 
forget this law sometimes, and undertake to 
force events, we endeavor to convince ourselves 
that there is a royal road to success; but we soon 
discover that we can omit no steps. 

The seed planted in the ground, like the new 
idea sown in a wilderness of conflicting opinion, 
contains an indwelling principle of life, which 
causes it to develop along certain lines and along 
no others. It partakes of the soil. It grows 
and absorbs nutriment from the sunlight, it 
matures slowly, it is dependent solely on what 
it has within and what closely surrounds it. Its 
growth may be hastened within certain limits, 
but only by introducing a new factor. The life 
of the plant which it becomes in due time is a 



65 

type of all evolution. It is growth, not by crea- 
tion out of nothing, but through the transfor- 
mation of that which already exists into some- 
thing different. Its growth is due to the 
interaction of part on part. Its transmutation 
into another species can only result through 
the modification, the introduction into its own 
life of some new element. The new element 
once introduced, whether in the organic or the 
inorganic worlds, in society, in politics, in re- 
ligion, a change is sure to result; and one need 
only await its coming. 

But we have the best evidence in our own 
lives; and the chief problem, laying aside all 
discussion of particular theories of evolution, is 
to discover the actual course of events in daily 
experience, to learn how far we have gone in the 
upbuilding of character and soul, to aspire and 
to co-operate with the immanent forces of our 
own being. 

We have an excellent example of what evolu- 
tion means in the growth of our own ideas. We 
are born with a certain set of opinions on mat- 
ters of religion, politics, and the like. There 
is a strong tendency toward conservatism ; and 
we are inclined to think like our parents, and 
even to cherish and defend the dogmas which 
have come down to us. But with each experi- 
ence, each new book, each new acquaintance 



66 

with the world and with people, which makes an 
impression on us, a new factor enters into our 
thought ; and the only way to avoid progress is 
to avoid contact with progressive people. 

So well is this understood by certain leaders 
of thought that they forbid their followers to 
read outside of established lines; for they know 
that, if people think, they will change. Ideas 
have a resident, a stimulating life, especially 
when they come fresh from the minds of those to 
whom the world's mental progress is due. They 
speak to us in books. They compel our assent 
through reason and through people. And, once 
sown in the mind, they work a wonderful trans- 
formation, until they burst forth with all the 
power of firm conviction. 

Yet the transition is ever gradual and law- 
governed, like the growth of the tree. No idea 
is established without controversy. We turn it 
over, weigh it, and view it in all its aspects, 
just as new social and political institutions grow 
out of controversy and long experience. The 
power of conviction comes only when the last 
objection has been met. We are involuntarily 
as moderate and painstaking as Nature herself. 
If perchance we forget the natural method, and 
jump at conclusions, we discover no way of mak- 
ing them sure but to go back and supply all the 
steps. If an idea appeals to us at once, it is 



6/ 

because thought and experience have already 
prepared the way for its acceptance. We cannot 
force a full-grown idea into the mind of another 
any more than nature can be interfered with 
from without. We are compelled to seek a 
starting-point, to discover some idea already 
existing in the mind of the other person, and 
lead on gradually from the known to the un- 
known. Nor can we create a new philosophy or 
originate any idea which has no basis in experi- 
ence. Whether we will or no, we must take 
cognizance of universal human knowledge, and 
develop our own thought from that. Psychology 
shows that even the wildest and most absurd 
fancies of the imagination are in some way prod- 
ucts of experience. 

Our own deepest self challenges us to find any 
possible method of growth and change except 
that of patient evolution, the great world-wide 
process of "continuous progressive change, ac- 
cording to unvarying laws, and by means of resi- 
dent forces." * ^The process once called creation 
is as long as time itself, as wide as the uni- 
verse. It is going on to-day. It will never 
cease until its great task be completed. It is 
thorough, painstaking, gradual, and sure. It is 
economical, careful, and direct, making use of 
every incident, every possible factor, every so- 

* Le Conte, " Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought," Part i, p. 8. 



68 

called chance, so that in human life joy, sorrow, 
hardship, success, heredity, disposition, environ- 
ment, education, society, and thought, are called 
into use; and all these factors have their mean- 
ing, their bearing on the ideal result. "The 
ideal is immanent in the real." The aspiring 
force speaks through the slightest incident 
of experience. The all-powerful, omnipresent 
Spirit aspires through, co-operates with, and 
seeks co-operation from the individual soul to 
whom it is ever trying to make itself known. 
God is immanent in evolution. 

In order to make this intimate relationship of 
God and his world of manifestation clear and 
vivid, let us try for a moment to conceive the 
long series of forces and substances, interpene- 
trating and blending with each other, and de- 
scending from the central Love down through the 
immanent life, the higher attributes of man, the 
soul, the realm of mind, the physical and chem- 
ical forces, gravitation, cohesion, electricity, and 
the particles of matter, and all the volatile sub- 
stances to the liquids, solids, and finally to the 
hard rock. Or, starting with the supposed 
nebulous mass out of which our universe grew, 
let us pass slowly upward through the vast 
cycles of cosmic time, the thought of which adds 
depth and meaning to the conception of God. 
Let us pause in silence until we feel the spirit 



69 

of the ages. Good visualizers will probably call 
up some mental picture which suggests these 
vast stretches of time. Out of the gradually 
cooling mass which at length takes shape as our 
earth we shall see the dawn of life, and the 
moderate, patient, purposeful transition from the 
inorganic to the organic kingdoms, the long 
periods in which one form of animal life suc- 
ceeded and won supremacy over another, the 
change from the rank vegetation of the carbonif- 
erous period to the graceful forms of to-day, the 
raising of continents and mountains, the retreat 
of the great ice-sheets which once covered large 
portions of the northern hemisphere, and the dim 
outlines of that far distant society, the herding 
together of men, out of which grew modern civ- 
ilization. 

Thus we come at last to the dawn of human 
history. The epochs of the past unfold before 
us with new meaning. We note how period 
has grown out of period, event out of event. 
Thought becomes overpowered by the vastness 
and complexity of civilized life in its endless 
phases, its manifold contributions to the arts 
and sciences. The great truths of religion and 
philosophy, the great souls of history, claim our 
attention at last; and thus the thought turns 
once more to the one Reality which this long 
evolutionary process suggests. 



7o 

One's personal thought is lost in contempla- 
tion of the Universal. One is momentarily 
lifted above the present, above the world of 
human life, into the life of worlds, of the uni- 
verse, — yes, the very life of God, of which one 
seems to contemplate but one of its infinite 
phases. One feels and knows that the human 
self is part of this great Life, which no words 
can describe. One communes with the Essence 
itself, the All-thing, the Spirit, the Love. 
Matter seems like a mere symbol as compared 
with this its real meaning. The Life which 
manifested itself so long ago in the primeval 
history of the earth returns to consciousness in 
man, and recognizes through him its own tran- 
scendent source. The soul knows the great 
unity henceforth, whatever be the phase of it 
contemplated. It habitually turns from the uni- 
verse to God and from God to his great world of 
manifestation. 



IV. 

OUR LIFE IN MIND. 

Certain aspects of the outer world now stand 
out clearly before us. The universe is an order, 
a system, an organized whole, in which each 
being and thing bears some relation to all 
others. Everything is related, not alone through 
its dependence on its neighbors, but through the 
law of cause and effect, the one fundamental 
force, substance, and life, and the law by which 
all things come into being. The outer world 
seems to be composed of independent forms and 
hard substances. Yet all forms are transient. 
The dense material dissipates into invisible 
gases and ultimate particles ; and we find noth- 
ing permanent until we turn to the realm of the 
invisible and persistent Power which underlies 
these shifting forms. Even the constant quali- 
ties of matter must have their basis in a more 
substantial Reality in order to be constant at 
all. Matter is eternal only so far as it inheres 
in this self-existent Reality. It is law-gov- 
erned only because the One is unchangeable. 
And, finally, it has no satisfactory meaning for 
us until we view it as the very consciousness, 



72 

the objectified life of God himself, of the God 
who is in his world, immanent in evolution and 
immanent in the soul. 

The Reality of the outer and inner worlds, 
then, is one. Everything exists in God; and 
we, existing in him, contemplate and know his 
conscious manifestations, in part. We do not 
simply feel matter as so many distinct objects. 
We do not simply feel sensations of light, heat, 
and cold. An object, a blow, a sense of 
warmth, does not come directly to the soul. 
The object must be understood, the blow must 
be perceived and reported, the feeling of warmth 
must be translated into an idea. We feel, and 
also know that we feel, force or matter in some 
of its forms. The simple act of feeling and 
knowing implies the existence not only of an 
outer world from which our sensations come, but 
of a conscious being to whom that world is made 
known. These very words become intelligible 
to the reader only as they call up ideas; and 
back of these ideas, following one another in 
rapid succession in the reader's consciousness, 
is the reader himself contemplating, thinking 
over these ideas, and associating them with what 
reflective experience has already made clear. 

Even the materialist must admit this; for, in 
affirming that matter alone exists, he is simply 
stating a product of his reason. He has put cer- 






73 

tain ideas together, and evolved them into a 
system. This system of ideas is to him all 
absorbing. It is his habitual mode of thought, 
and colors his entire conscious experience. As 
a natural consequence, he neglects one aspect of 
that experience. He forgets the real nature of 
his ideas, affirming that mind is a mere flame, 
a product or outgrowth of matter. But even in 
admitting this he surrenders the stronghold of 
materialism, since by his own admission this 
flame is conscious; and consciousness is the 
fundamental fact of existence. It involves all 
that we are, all that we know, desire, and feel, 
the whole universe, and the great Thinker 
himself. 

State the case as strongly as we may for mate- 
rialism, we are more certain that mind exists, 
for we know matter only through mind; and the 
materialist must account for this deepest aspect 
of life with all that it involves. In fact, it is 
futile to deny either the subjective or the objec- 
tive aspects of life; for the two have evolved 
together. They are present in our first experi- 
ence; and the infant, reaching for the picture on 
the distant wall, and trying to locate the objects 
about him, is making the first discrimination be- 
tween them. He soon gets some idea of space, 
for he finds that he cannot reach the picture on 
the wall. He learns to know one person from 



74 

another. He distinguishes between his body 
and himself; and, finally, he becomes conscious 
of himself as a being that can feel and will. 
Part of all that he sees, feels, hears, or in any 
way experiences is due to his understanding 
from the moment his discriminating conscious- 
ness is quickened. The world becomes compre- 
hensible to him as fast as he himself develops to 
comprehend it. Gradually his emotions and his 
knowledge play a greater and greater part in his 
life, until he develops a personal atmosphere, 
which projects itself into the outer world. Im- 
pulse and imagination in time give place to rea- 
son, but the thought of the man is no less influ- 
ential in its effect on his life, he is just as truly 
leading a life of mind; and every business trans- 
action, every pain and pleasure, is largely de- 
pendent on the confidence or belief he puts 
into it. 

But all this is apt to be forgotten. Man for- 
gets that he is a soul with a body, that he is 
primarily a conscious being, contemplating ideas 
and influenced by thought. Some thought is 
always prominent with him. He is always de- 
voted to something. He shapes and controls 
things by his thought. Yet, just because the 
influence of thought is constant and is a fact of 
the commonest experience, he is unmindful of 
its real power and the real nature of his life. 



75 

He seems to be leading a material life, and 
accordingly permits himself to be overcome by 
that which is material. But even here it is 
belief which governs his conduct. As a con- 
scious being, he could be governed by nothing 
else. Every act of conduct is due to a direc- 
tion of mind; and the mind shapes the conduct, 
and draws to itself whatever corresponds to the 
thought, just as truly and in the same way as a 
magnet attracts particles of iron. As this may 
not be fully evident, it is well to consider the 
influence of thought at some length; for in this 
neglected factor of human experience we shall 
find the greatest help in the problems of health 
and happiness. 

It is evident first of all that the impression 
made upon us by a given experience depends 
largely upon the opinion we put into it. Let a 
company of people of varied tastes, prejudices, 
and education read a thoughtful book, listen to 
a speaker of decided opinions, or attend an en- 
tertainment of considerable merit, and their 
comments will display a wonderful variety 
of opinion. Diametricalty opposed opinions on 
political, religious, and philosophical questions 
have been maintained ever since man began to 
reflect. A slight or a very marked divergence 
of opinion separates mankind into little groups 



7 6 

and sects the world over. Each sect offers its 
opinions as truth. Everywhere people accept 
and are influenced by opinions with surprising 
readiness. Thousands of people have been made 
miserable and thrown into a state of excitement 
because in their fear and ignorance they ac- 
cepted the teachings of dogmatic theology about 
sin and a future state, to say nothing of the 
slavery to medical opinion and the untold suffer- 
ing that has grown out of it. The credulity, 
the gullibility of human nature is one of its pro- 
foundest weaknesses; and I need only refer to it 
to suggest its bearing on our mental life. It 
is a guiding factor with the majority of people, 
and opens the door to the control of the weak by 
the clever, the strong, and the unprincipled. 
Every one is deceived at times through this 
inherent eagerness to believe rather than to 
understand, and the influence of prejudice is so 
subtle that only the keenest and most discerning 
minds are able to eliminate it to any marked 
degree. 

We are so accustomed to obey certain ideas 
that we are scarcely aware of their power over 
us, or how true it is that "the world is what 
we make it." We are born with a set of ideas, 
born members of sects and parties in which the- 
ory, practice, and prejudice have become one. 
Our religion, education, and even our fears are 



77 

prepared for us by other minds. Every oppor- 
tunity is given us to develop along traditional 
lines, and it is deemed almost a blasphemy to 
have ideas of our own. Even if in later life one 
be quickened in a new direction, it is almost 
impossible to overcome and cast aside these 
deeply rooted opinions and prejudices. 

We do not stop to question our beliefs. Prej- 
udice will not permit it. People, as a rule, pre- 
fer to accept opinion without attempting to prove 
or disprove it. They are bored, — and it is a 
most lamentable fact, — they are bored by rea- 
sons and proof. It seems never to have occurred 
to them that man is free, and sure of his own in- 
dividuality and the truth, only so far as he has 
gone with a rational process of thought. The 
tendency to think for one's self — the most help- 
ful and healthy tendency in man — is crushed 
out in its infancy; and our whole system of tra- 
ditional education and religion tends to shape 
man's belief for him. It is only when some 
unusually original or self-reliant thinker breaks 
through the hard and fast lines of rut-bound 
thinking that any ideas of fundamental value are 
given to the world. The non-sectarian and un- 
prejudiced man of science is a very late product 
of evolution; and even he is prejudiced against 
many religious questions, and as rigorously ex- 
cludes all facts that lie without the boundaries 



78 

of natural science as the most bigoted conserva- 
tive rules out the doctrines of the radical. The 
love of truth is not yet strong enough to make 
us seek universal truth rather than particular 
opinion. We think we know. Preconception 
blinds our eyes on every hand. We give credit 
to this man or this sect, as though there could 
be a monopoly of truth, when a little reflection 
would show that truth is universal, and does not 
hold because any man enunciates it, or because 
any sect champions it, but because it is inherent 
in the nature of things and persons. 

It is a revelation to most people to discover 
the power of fear in their own lives. It enters 
into their religion. It often inspires the preju- 
dice which stifles unbiassed inquiry. It enters 
into every detail of daily life. We are appre- 
hensive, as a race. We picture calamities of 
every description, and dread the worst. The 
sensational press furnishes constant material for 
fear. We fear to eat this and that. We dread, 
anticipate, and really put ourselves in the best 
attitude to take certain diseases; and we live in 
constant fear of death. And fear is simply an- 
other form of opinion. It runs back to our will- 
ingness to believe rather than to think for our- 
selves. It is based on ignorance, increases in 
intensity with the degree of superstition, and 
vanishes when we understand the law of develop- 
ment, of cause and effect. 



79 

But the one who knows the law and obeys it 
without fear, the scientific man or the seer, just 
as truly as the savage, is building his own world 
from within. The world is just as large and 
just as intelligible as his own ability to inter- 
pret it. The artist discovers qualities in the 
outer world which actually do not exist for other 
people. He detects certain lights and shades, 
certain undulations of the landscape, and an 
endless variety of transformations during the 
four seasons of the year. A scientific man will 
discover evidences of glaciation, and read a long 
and most interesting history from a rock which, 
may be a worthless obstacle to the farmer. 
Even the beautiful Alps were once deemed so 
many obstructions to travel before the love of 
natural scenery was developed. The same scene 
viewed by the novelist, the historian, the war- 
rior, the man of business, the savage, presents 
just so many different aspects, depending upon 
their training and the class of facts which serve 
their purpose. It may be comical, it may be 
tragical, it may inspire happiness, sorrow, 
comfort, dread, chagrin, pity, and suggest a 
thousand different ideas to the beholder. All 
these aspects may have some basis in fact, but 
they are not complete pictures of the outer 
world. They are individual phases of it. We 
see things as we are. 



8o 

The difference, then, is deeper than education 
alone. There are natural tastes, likes and dis- 
likes, affinities and sentiments, rendering the 
saying "What is one man's meat is another's 
poison " equally applicable to the inner world. 
Passion colors the world according to its nature 
and intensity. Experiences, dispositions, theo- 
ries, differ, and project themselves into every 
fact of life. One thinker is persistently opti- 
mistic, despite all that life brings of pain and 
misery; another is no less strong in his pes- 
simism: while a third is so bigoted that he can- 
not be urged to take a fair view of anything, not 
even of his own persistently biased nature. 

The very fact that the world is so large, that 
the one Reality is only known to us in part, or 
so far as experience has made it known, shows 
that our interpretations must differ, and that the 
difference is in us. Indeed, one may seriously 
question if the limitations of temperament will 
ever be overcome, if one man can ever describe 
life except as he sees it, modified by the general 
knowledge of the race. Perhaps that very feeling 
of individuality is fundamental in the thought of 
God, is the divine consciousness focalized in a 
given direction. If so, it is each one's duty to 
cultivate this profoundest individuality, and dis- 
cover just what God means through it, what 
aspect of life one is best able to interpret. 



8i 

This deeper life in mind must then take the 
place of the superficial world of opinion. The 
dogmas and influences of other people must be 
rigorously excluded until, in moments of silence 
and quiet reflection, one learns the divine point 
of view through the individual man. 

Thus the individual thinker penetrates deeper 
and deeper in his analysis of our life in mind, 
until his consciousness seems to blend with the 
universal Thinker, of whose consciousness all 
life is a part. His means of knowing the outer 
world, and the influence of opinion, of preju- 
dice, education, and temperament, prove to him 
that he lives in mind. But now he discovers a 
yet deeper reason, and once more happily makes 
his escape from the narrowing effects of mere 
self-consciousness into the greater consciousness 
of the Universal. 

The difference between one person and an- 
other, then, is fundamental. One has only to 
try to put one's self in the mind of a friend in 
order to realize this wonderful difference. Let 
the friend be one's closest companion, one's 
mother or brother, whom one has known inti- 
mately from infancy; and even here the transi- 
tion is impossible. There is something that we 
cannot grasp, because it is the friend's experi- 
ence, and can never be ours. Personality, — - what 
is it, whence came it, and what does it mean? 



82 

Your world and my world, how much alike, yet 
how utterly dissimilar! and how many and varied 
the aspects of a single personality as presented 
to different people, all equally true perhaps, all 
drawn out from a single source under ever-chang- 
ing conditions! Self exists within self, — the 
social self, the self of impulse and emotion, and 
the self of reason, the conscious self and the 
subconscious, wherein we turn over and view 
ideas in all their aspects until they become 
fixed habits of thought, the fleeting ephemeral 
self, which reveals itself in an endless variety of 
moods, opinions, and feelings, and the perma- 
ment self which we call soul, that deeper con- 
sciousness which blends with the Self of selves. 
But some self is always uppermost. To this 
we are for the moment devoted, and it is this 
more superficial self or direction of mind that 
we are most concerned with in this chapter. One 
fact remains true of all personalities, however 
great the difference between them. They are 
all conscious beings. On the one hand come 
impressions from the world of matter. On the 
other come thoughts and influences in the sphere 
of mind. The two unite in consciousness, and 
form the world of mental life, or our interpreta- 
tion of the great organized whole of which we 
are part. In the centre exists man. Looking 
one way, all that he sees is apparently material. 



83 

Looking in the other, all appears to be mind. 
When he seeks their unity, he finds it alone in 
the conscious self which underlies them both, 
which therefore makes his whole life mental, 
and which is to be explained only by reference 
to the one Self. 

But our mental life is not made up of percep- 
tions, emotions, and other conscious ideas alone. 
There is a more subtle form of thought influence 
than any we have yet considered. The rapid 
development of hypnotism has opened up a phase 
of this influence which throws much light on the 
nature of mind. The mind is even more suscep- 
tible to the power of suggestion than to the 
power of opinion. Opinion itself often comes 
in the form of suggestion, and carries a hypnotic 
influence with it. Indeed, the influence, the so- 
called magnetism, that accompanies the spoken 
or written word, is often more effective than a 
strong argument. The strong sway the weak in 
this way; and positive minds draw negative 
minds about them, which merely reflect the 
thought of the leader. Auto-suggestion is also 
a powerful factor in our mental life, and is often 
used, greatly to the benefit of the health. People 
emulate each other through unconscious sugges- 
tion. People are drawn into all sorts of fash- 
ions, fads, and influences through these silent 



8 4 

suggestions. Every one, in fact, has some 
strange experience to relate nowadays, illustra- 
tive of occult influence, hidden and unsuspected 
communications between mind and mind, and 
the remarkable effect of thought upon the body 
in the cause and cure of disease. 

Every sensitive person is also aware of mental 
atmospheres surrounding persons and places, just 
as the odor emanates from and surrounds a rose. 
This is especially noticeable in a church or in 
some great cathedral where for ages men have 
bowed in worship in accordance with their par- 
ticular form of religion, and have left their in- 
fluence behind them. Every household, town, 
or city has its peculiar mentality, the analysis 
of which reveals the characteristics of the minds 
that produce it. A wonderfully stimulating at- 
mosphere pervades a great university, causing a 
marked change in the thought, the manners, and 
even the dress of the novice, who, if he be espe- 
cially susceptible, is often over-stimulated by it. 
Wherever man has lived and thought, these at- 
mospheres have been left behind him. They are 
associated with chairs where people have sat for 
some length of time. They are associated with 
clothing, and a change of clothing is therefore 
sufficient at times to change the state of mind. 
They come with books and letters sometimes 
revealing more of the personality that sends 



85 

them forth than the person would wish. They 
draw people together, and cause them to think 
alike. There is an atmosphere about some 
people that warns one not to come too close, 
while in other cases there is instant affinity and 
sympathy. One occasionally meets people 
whose very presence is a lasting stimulus and 
an inspiration. One seems to take away some- 
thing besides the mere memory of a noteworthy 
interview; and some people forget their troubles, 
lose their aches and pains, and are immensely 
benefited by simply talking with a helpful 
friend. Some people compel attention or obedi- 
ence by their presence, and exact a surprising 
amount of service and homage from other people. 
Character, then, is not only written in the 
face, expressed in conduct and language, but is 
sent forth as a thought atmosphere. Atmos- 
pheres impinge and leave their impressions on 
each other, revealing the nature, thought, and 
feeling of the personality which gives rise to 
them. This is evidently the reason why first 
impressions are usually correct, and why depres- 
sion and other states of feeling are passed from 
mind to mind. Some delicately organized peo- 
ple find it inadvisable to go into society except 
at rare intervals ; for they get entangled in these 
amospheres, and do not know how to throw them 
off. Others seem to have the happy art of leav- 



86 

ing a part of themselves behind, of making every 
one else happy, yet never yielding their own 
personality to any contaminating influence. 

But thought communications are not limited 
by time or space. One sometimes feels that a 
friend is about to call or write just before the 
actual visit is made or the letter received. 
People in different parts of the world working 
along parallel lines of thought sometimes make 
the same invention or discovery at the same 
time. The phenomena of thought transference 
are too well authenticated to need proof here, 
although I have the exact data of many experi- 
ences in my own life, and thought communi- 
cation has long been a matter of common 
occurrence. The evidence in favor of a constant 
stream of mental influences passing from mind 
to mind is in fact overwhelming, and the mere 
data are not as important as the principle im- 
plied in their occurrence. 

Some still dismiss such experiences as mere 
coincidences, or deem them of little value when 
the communication takes place between friends; 
but those who, like the writer, have taken note 
of the exact words, of time and place in which 
the message came, and have immediately re- 
ceived a letter from the distant friend contain- 
ing precisely the same data, know beyond all 
doubt that the experience was no mere happen- 



87 

ing, and the very fact that such communications 
are common between those who are in sympathy 
is a proof of their occurrence. We recognize our 
friends' communications because we know their 
mental atmosphere. Other messages may come 
and produce no conscious impression on us, be- 
cause we are ignorant of their source. They are 
mere impersonal thoughts, that slip into the 
consciousness almost as our own; and oftentimes 
we learn that these supposed original thoughts 
are common to the intellectual life of our time, 
and are "in the air." Whereas telepathic com- 
munications with a friend, like the sound of a 
familiar voice, have some meaning for us, and 
put us in touch with the friend's personality. 
It is not necessary, then, that certain words be 
transmitted and recorded in order to prove telep- 
athy; for the mere directing of one's thought 
toward another is sufficient to make one's self 
known. In writing a letter, one naturally thinks 
of the person to whom it is to be sent; and this 
alone is sufficient to open up thought communi- 
cation, and perhaps reveal the contents of the 
letter. The communication is its own evidence, 
and suggests a principle far more important 
than any experiential attempts to repeat it under 
exact conditions. 

It is probable that we are living related lives, 
that we are not only members of one another 



88 

through the all-encompassing Spirit, but that we 
are bound each to each by ties of thought. 
Mental man, then, is not an isolated creature any- 
more than is physical man, but is part of a psy- 
chical organism, in which every thought plays 
its part and has its effect just as truly as the 
events in the physical world or in the social 
organism; or, better, that for conscious man 
there is but one organism, of which we contem- 
plate now its physical, now its social, its men- 
tal, its ethical and spiritual phases, according 
to the line of thought or the self which chances 
to be uppermost. If this be so, and if the 
events of this purely mental phase of life be 
law-governed, correlated, and causally connected 
with its other phases, there can be no real chasm 
between mind and matter or between thought 
and soul or spirit. There must be some means 
of communicating between mind and mind, be- 
tween thought and matter; and, while it is not 
possible to supply all the steps in the transition 
at this early stage of the inquiry, certain facts 
have already been ascertained which are of the 
greatest importance in the present discussion. 

Many students of thought transference and of 
other facts of our mental life have found it nec- 
essary to postulate the existence of a subtle 
substance, which, like the luminiferous ether, 
conveys thought vibrations from mind to mind, 



8 9 

precisely as the sun's energy is brought to our 
earth. It is far more probable that the commu- 
nication takes place in this way than through 
the journeying of the soul from place to place; 
for, although some people have the ability to 
discover and describe things at a distance, there 
is little reason to believe that the soul ever 
leaves the body until the change called death 
occurs. Nor is it probable that the soul or 
spirit projects itself at any great distance. The 
thought wave probably passes through this finest 
form of ether, just as waves of sound are trans- 
mitted through the air, setting up vibrations in 
the recipient corresponding to those in the 
sender. Sound, light, heat, color, and the mo- 
tion caused by wind on the surface of water are 
transmitted in this way; and one would natu- 
rally look for the same law in the realm of 
thought. In nature, then, it is the energy, the 
wave-motion, that is transferred, and not the 
object which gives rise to it. Every sound 
makes an impression on the atmosphere capable 
of setting up a corresponding vibration in the 
ears of all who are within a certain distance. 
In a similar manner each thought is probably 
registered on this subtle ether; and those who 
are open to it through sympathy or some com- 
mon interest become aware of it or unconsciously 
receive the benefit of it. Minds of a like order 



go 

are thus enabled to think together. The new 
thoughts of one stimulate those who are ready to 
respond, while thoughts that do not concern us 
pass off like sound in a desert, where there is no 
one to hear. Sympathy, receptivity, is the prime 
requisite in conscious thought communication. 
Yet, if there be an intermental substance, all 
minds must be open to it in some degree, and 
the most potent influences may be received un- 
consciously. 

This ethereal substance in which our minds 
seem to be bathed is probably molecular in 
structure; yet it is obviously finer than electric- 
ity or the luminiferous ether, and is capable of 
penetrating the most minute spaces, just as the 
coarser gases interpenetrate the molecules of 
liquids and solids. It is evidently the finest 
grade of matter, and is immediately responsive 
to the slightest possible thought activity. On 
the one hand, it is probably like thought, or 
thought sent forth and condensed, just as the 
breath is condensed on a frosty morning, and on 
the other, like matter in its more ethereal forms. 
It may therefore be called thought matter or 
spiritual matter, since it apparently supplies the 
connection between spirit and matter, and par- 
takes of both. In addition to the general inter- 
mediary between mind and mind there must then 
be a personal mentality, which gives shape to 



9i 

individual thought. This has already been in 
part described as mental atmosphere, and evi- 
dently proceeds from the personality, just as 
heat is seen rising from the ground on a warm 
day. It may be conceived as a wonderfully sen- 
sitive impression plate, jelly-like in texture, 
responding to the slightest possible change of 
thought, and performing an office similar to that 
of the earth's atmosphere, the minute particles 
of which catch the solar rays, and radiate them 
to the earth's surface in the form of heat and 
light. From it the transition is probably made 
directly to thought on the one hand and to bod- 
ily changes on the other, for it evidently pene- 
trates the finest spaces in every portion of the 
physical body. Its existence therefore explains 
why thought can mould the body in causing and 
curing disease, and gives a reason for the su- 
premacy of mind. In recent literature it is de- 
scribed as an uprush from the subliminal or 
subjective self; and it is probably in this sur- 
rounding atmosphere or uprush that faces, forms, 
and other shapes are seen, as well as a large 
class of phenomena known as hallucinations. 
Whatever be the nature of this ethereal sub- 
stance, it is evident, then, that it gives shape 
to thought. Dr. Quimby,* who, so far as I am 
aware, was the first to discover and describe this 

* See Preface. 



92 

aspect of it, called it spiritual matter, since it 
possesses qualities characteristic of both matter 
and spirit. Into it, according to his descrip- 
tion, are sown all sorts of ideas and erroneous 
opinions, fear, and beliefs about disease, which 
condense and germinate like seeds in the 
ground, producing changes in the body corre- 
sponding to the states of spiritual matter. He 
therefore distinguished between the mind which 
can be changed by thought and the mind which 
cannot change, which he called Wisdom. His 
own researches led him to make this distinction, 
and with him the existence of spiritual matter 
was no hypothesis, but a fact of experience. It 
was an object of perception with him. He could 
describe its changes, and was himself conscious 
of changing it when he explained some error to 
a person in trouble or sickness. His discovery 
therefore supplied the connecting link in the 
mental cause and cure of disease, which has been 
the means of relieving so much suffering during 
the past half-century. 

It is evident, then, that this spiritual matter is 
also in close connection, if not partly synony- 
mous, with the unconscious or, more properly, 
the subconscious mind, the physiological aspect 
of which is known as unconscious cerebration. 
The conscious thought evidently descends to the 
plane of the subconscious when it is dismissed 



93 

by the will or the attention. It may than take 
form as spiritual matter, and be reflected in the 
body, or it may simply be turned over in the 
mind until the idea becomes a permanent factor 
in our mental life. It is a well-known fact that 
during this subconscious process new light is 
thrown on difficult questions, and the perplexing 
problem which we dismiss from consciousness at 
night is often solved for us in the morning. 
Whence came the new solution? Have we not 
arrived once more at the general conclusion of 
this book; namely, that "we lie open on one 
side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the at- 
tributes of God " ? * This openness is greater 
during sleep; and it is probably then that the 
mind gets many of its new ideas from the very 
source of wisdom, the mind that cannot change, 
the All-knowledge. 

One mind is thus revealed within another, 
like organism within organism in nature. The 
problem becomes more complicated as we pro- 
ceed; and in this great question — namely, the 
origin of our ideas — is involved the very mys- 
tery of life itself. But, not to complicate our 
present discussion, it is sufficient to say that 
this intermediary shades off into all the aspects 
of our life in mind. As it approaches the finest 
forms of matter in the physical body, it gives 

* Emerson, "The Over-Soul." 



94 

rise to physical sensation, causing density, con- 
traction, or expansion, according to the nature 
of the thought. As it vibrates or extends to 
other minds, it becomes thought transference, 
or, more accurately, the medium of thought 
transmission. Descending to the realm of the 
partly conscious, it becomes the subconscious 
mind, and is connected with the subjective or 
deepest self. Rising to the plane of definite 
thought, it blends with the conscious mind, by 
which it can be moulded like clay in the hands 
of the potter. At death it is probably separated 
forever from physical sensation, leaving the 
ability to communicate through its more spirit- 
ual aspect an indestructible quality of the soul. 
Now that we have made the transition from 
matter to mind as well as our imperfect knowl- 
edge would permit, it becomes evident that the 
thought which changes matter is of far more im- 
portance than the actual process. There must 
then be some fundamental law which governs 
alike in our transitory and permanent mental 
states, and gives unity to the aspects of the 
inner life which we have passed in hasty re- 
view. As this law is of great practical impor- 
tance, it is necessary to approach a definition of 
it by degrees. 

If we observe a little child at play, we notice 



95 

that it turns from this sport to that, from one 
plaything to another, as rapidly as its attention 
is attracted. The first indication of definite 
growth in the baby's mind is this fixing of its 
baby eyes and its blossoming consciousness on 
some attractive object. The observant mother 
early learns to govern the child largely through 
its interested and skilfully directed attention. 
A little later she discovers that it is far better 
both for the present and the permanent good of 
the child never to call it naughty, and thereby 
to call more attention to its unruliness, but to 
interest it in some new play, or carefully and 
persistently to point out the better way, until 
it shall have become all-absorbing. Later still, 
when the child develops ways of its own, its 
persistence or wilfulness is still attention fixed 
on some cherished plan. The student so ab- 
sorbed in his book that he is oblivious of the 
conversation going on about him illustrates the 
same power of a fixed direction of mind. The 
performance of skilled labor consists largely in 
the cultivation and concentration of the atten- 
tion, together with the necessary manual ac- 
companiment. The art of remembering well 
depends largely on the attention one gives to 
a speaker or book. That speaker or book is in- 
teresting which wins and holds our attention. 
That thought or event influences us which makes 



9 6 

an impression, and becomes part of our mental 
life through the attention. We learn a lan- 
guage, grasp some profound philosophy, or ex- 
perience the beneficial effect of elevating 
thought, rid ourselves of morbid, unhealthy, or 
dispiriting states of mind with their bodily ex- 
pressions, in proportion as we dwell on some 
ideal or keep before us some fixed purpose, until 
by persistent effort the goal be won. 

What is hypnotism but an induced direction 
of mind suggested by the hypnotist? When the 
subject is under control, and hypnotized, for 
example, to see a picture on the wall where 
there is none, the whole mind of the subject is 
absorbed in seeing the supposed picture, and 
there is no time nor power left to detect the 
deception. Many self-hypnotized people are 
equally at the mercy of some idea which is the 
pure invention of their fears. Insanity best of 
all illustrates the nature of a direction of mind 
pure and simple, with the wonderful physical 
strength which sometimes accompanies the dom- 
ination of a single idea. All strongly opinion- 
ated people, those whom we call cranks, the 
narrow-minded, the creed-bound, the strongly 
superstitious, illustrate the same principle, and 
from one point of view are insane, — insane so 
far as they allow a fixed state of mind to control 
their lives and draw the stream of intelligence 



97 

into a single channel : whereas the wisely 
rounded-out character, the true philosopher, is 
one who, while understanding that conduct is 
moulded by thought, never allows himself to 
dwell too long on one object, but seeks all-round 
development. 

The point for emphasis, then, is this: that in 
every experience possible to a human being the 
direction of mind is the controlling factor. In 
health, in disease, in business, in play, in relig- 
ion, education, art, science, in all that has been 
suggested in the foregoing, the principle is the 
same. The directing of the mind, the fixing of 
the attention or will, lies at the basis of all con- 
duct. The motive, the intent, the impulse or 
emotion, gives shape to the entire life; for con- 
scious man is always devoted to something. 
Let the reader analyze any act whatever, and he 
will prove this beyond all question. 

The whole process, the law that as is our 
direction of mind so is our conduct, seems won- 
derfully simple and effective when we stop to 
consider it. Yet we are barely conscious of the 
great power we exercise in every moment of life. 
We are not aware that, in the fact that the mind 
can fully attend to but one object at a time, 
lies the explanation of a vast amount of trouble, 
and that by the same process in which we make 
our trouble we can get out of it. 



9 8 

Yet we know from experience that our painful 
sensations increase when we dwell on them, and 
that we recover most rapidly when we are ill if 
we live above and out of our trouble. On the 
other hand, we know that a wise direction of 
thought persisted in, or the pursuit of an ideal 
without becoming insanely attached to it and 
impatient to realize it, marks a successful career. 
Without the generally hopeful attitudes of mind 
embodied by our best churches, and expressed in 
our beliefs about the world, we should hardly 
know how to live in a universe where there is so 
much that is wicked and discouraging, and so 
much that is beyond our ken. 

We are ever choosing and rejecting certain 
ideas and lines of conduct to the exclusion of 
certain others, and into our choice is thrown all 
that constitutes us men and women. The pres- 
ent attitude of the reader is just such a direc- 
tion of mind; and this book, like the world at 
large, means just as much or as little as the 
reader is large and wise in experience. In the 
same way this book, or any other, reveals the life 
and limitations of its author. It cannot tran- 
scend them, it cannot conceal them; for in 
some way, through the written or spoken word 
or through thought atmosphere, personality ever 
makes itself known. The law of direction of 
mind is evidently no less exact than any which 



99 

science has formulated. The world is what we ' 
make it, because only so much of it is revealed 
as we can grasp. In whatever direction we turn 
our mental search-light, those objects on which 
it falls are thrown into sudden prominence for 
the time. The world is dark and full of gloom 
only so long as we dwell upon its darkest as- 
pects, and do not look beyond them. There are 
endless sources of trouble about us. On the 
other hand, there are innumerable reasons to be 
glad if we will look at them. We can enter 
into trouble, complaint, worry, make ourselves 
and our friends miserable, so that we never enjoy 
the weather or anything else. Or we can be 
kind, charitable, forgiving, contented, ever on 
the alert to turn from unpleasant thoughts, and 
thereby live in a larger and happier world; for 
the choice is ours. If we fear, we open our- 
selves to all sorts of fancies, which correspond 
to our thought, and cause them to take shape. 
If we communicate our fears to friends, their 
thought helps ours. If we get angry, jealous, 
act impetuously, we suffer just in proportion to 
our thought. If we pause to reflect, to wait a 
moment in silence, until we are sure of our duty, 
we experience the benefit of quiet meditation. 

We invite what we expect. We attract what 
we are like. Let one understand this, and one 
need never fear. The law is perfect, and the 



IOO 

protection sure. Our safety lies in wisdom ; 
and, were we wise enough, we should probably 
have no fears at all. It is the explanation of 
our actual situation in this well-ordered world, 
dwelling near the heart of an omnipotent Father, 
that sets us free, and makes us masters of our 
own conduct. It should not therefore be a new 
source of terror to learn that we are beset by all 
sorts of subtle influences and hypnotic forces, or 
to be told that our own thought directions are 
largely instrumental in causing misery, dis-ease, 
and trouble of all sorts. These wrong influ- 
ences cannot touch us. Our own mental atmos- 
phere, our whole being, is a protection against 
them, if we have reached a higher plane. There 
must be a point of contact in order for one mind 
to affect another, some channel left open, some 
sympathy, just as there must be a certain affinity 
in order for two persons to form a mutual friend- 
ship. Our safety, our strength, lies in knowing 
our weakness, in discovering that the law of 
direction of mind is fundamental in every mo- 
ment of human life. If after that we go on in 
the same old way, complaining, fearing, think- 
ing along narrow lines, and submissively accept- 
ing the teaching of others, it will not be because 
we do not understand the law. 

Out of the mass of impressions and opinions 
which for the most people constitute mental life, 



IOI 

we can weed out those that bring harm, and de- 
velop those that are helpful. The economy of 
cultivating right thoughts is thus at once appar- 
ent. Matter is obviously just as much of a 
weight and a prison as we make it by our habit- 
ual thought. Looking one way, we enter into 
matter, or density. Looking in the other, we at-' 
tract that which is spiritual, or quickening. 
Ideas have power over us in proportion as we 
dwell on them exclusively. It is a matter, then, 
of real economy, of necessity, to view ourselves 
and our habitual ideas from as many directions 
I as possible, just as one goes away from home in 
.order to break out of the ruts into which one 
inevitably falls by living constantly in one 
atmosphere. 

Man leads a life of mind, then, because he is 
a conscious being, because the stream of con- 
sciousness is turned now into this channel, now 
into that, and can only take cognizance of a 
relatively large aspect of the world by the broad- 
est, least prejudiced, and most open-minded 
turning from one phase of it to another. He 
has a distinct individuality, for which he is per- 
sonally responsible, which it is his duty to pre- 
serve and to develop. It is through this, if he 
think for himself, that the keenest light is cast 
upon things; for it is the fundamental direction 
of consciousness, and ultimately blends with the 



102 

Self who knows all directions. Next in order 
comes daily experience, shaped by education, in- 
herited beliefs and tendencies and whatever 
leads it into a given channel. After these fixed 
directions of mind come the mere fleeting influ- 
ences, — mental pictures, fears, atmospheres, per- 
plexities, and troubles, affecting the thought 
superficially, yet possessing a tendency to strike 
deeper into the being, and become fixed habits 
through subconscious mental activity. The 
law is everywhere the same; namely, that the 
conscious direction of mind, supported by 
the whole personality, is all-controlling for 
the time, since the mind can fully attend to but 
one object at once. Its application to daily life 
is at once apparent. 

There is one consideration, however, which it 
is well to bear constantly in mind. The funda- 
mental or ultimate direction of mind and the 
states of consciousness caused by the outer world 
are not of our own making: they are founded on 
the one Reality. We cannot wholly build the 
world from within. Science is trying to dispel 
all illusions, so that we may see it nearer as 
it really is. Our world is not a mere fleeting 
show. We cannot change it by an act of will 
or a simple caprice. It only yields within cer- 
tain limits. Our world experience has a fixed 
and natural order. It is a system, both in its 



103 

subjective and its objective aspects, a growth. 
Man is a progressive being. He is not yet com- 
pleted, and the law of his growth is evolution. 
He may hinder that growth in a thousand differ- 
ent ways; and much depends on his attitude 
toward it, as we shall see in the next chapter. 
But he only changes the world as it appears to 
him, not as it exists in reality. Co-operation 
with it, with evolution, is his one greatest les- 
son. To learn how to adjust himself to the 
organism of which he forms a part is his great 
task, and the law of aspiration by which all 
evolution is guided is the direction of mind 
which is for him the one essential. His follies 
and fears will die of inanition. His harmful 
states of mind will cease to trouble him if he 
refuse them the attention which is their life. 
The source of the mental organism, in which 
he is a factor, is just as truly the immanent 
Life as the outer order of nature. It has a cer- 
tain tendency, which he can follow if he will; 
and, if he follow it consciously and reflectively, 
his thought will constantly lead him back to 
the great Originator, in whom the worlds of 
nature and of our mental life become one. 



V. 

THE MEANING OF SUFFERING. 

It was evident from the very outset of our 
inquiry into the origin and nature of things 
that we were considering a system, an organized 
whole. Events in that system move steadily 
forward with a certain rhythm. Everything is 
related to something else, cause leads to cause, 
and every fact suggests some relationship to an 
infinite whole. Indeed, it is difficult to see how 
a universe could exist unless its substances and 
forces were somehow unified in an ultimate, 
orderly whole, which should include them all; 
for a chaotic, an evil, and, therefore, a self-de- 
structive universe is clearly an impossibility. 
A universe must be good, — that is, it must fulfil 
a purpose, intrinsically and extrinsically, in the 
light of the whole and in the light of the parts, — 
in order to exist. It must have a meaning. It 
must spring from a self-existent Reality, which 
knows that meaning, inspires that purpose, and 
is at least as orderly as the universe itself. 
That our own world-system is just such an 
orderly progressive whole is proved by the exist- 
ence of an exact science describing it. 



105 

But what chance has man in such a progres- 
sive system ? Everything seems to be deter- 
mined. Long before he can take a hand in his 
career, fate has apparently chosen for him. In- 
heritance compels him to suffer for the sins of 
his parents. He is born into a world of misery, 
from which he vainly tries to escape. Life is a 
conflict at its best; and, even though he were 
free from the pangs of sorrow and suffering, 
there is a stern necessity which apparently car- 
ries him resistlessly forward to a destiny not of 
his own choosing. 

One fact, however, of fundamental importance 
qualifies all that we know about the world of 
necessity. That world resistlessly makes itself 
known in a certain manner. But man is pri- 
marily a conscious being. He seems to be the 
product of environment, and his. thought, his 
feeling, a mere ephemeral outgrowth of matter. 
Yet deeper than feeling, deeper than all that 
holds him in bondage to matter, is his individ- 
uality; and through this speaks a Power which 
renders all things possible. No two men are 
alike. No two interpretations of a world 
which is everywhere governed by the same laws 
are wholly identical. A personal element en- 
ters into every phase of human experience, 
Life, with all its pains and pleasures, is largely 
what we make it by our thought. Thought is a 



io6 

subtle moulding power, and is capable of direct- 
ing or hindering the forces of nature. Behind 
the stream of consciousness is the human will, 
choosing and giving shape to it. The direction 
of mind is the tendency which gives shape to 
physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual con- 
duct. The idea is the foremost factor in every 
aspect of experience. These two facts — namely, 
that the infinite Power is trying to make some- 
thing of us through oar individuality, and that 
everything, happiness, misery, health, and dis- 
ease, depends on our attitude toward that Power 
— explain the very mysteries of suffering and 
evil, at least so far as our limited knowledge 
can make them clear. 

The first and most helpful thought to bear 
in mind, then, alike in the interpretation of 
a given case of suffering or evil and in those 
moments of pain when the soul reaches out for 
help, is that the Power is with us here and now, 
immanent in the very soul that needs help and 
in the very trouble from which we wish to be 
free. If one keep this realization ever in mind, 
remembering what that Power is and how it is 
made known, if one never forget the outcome, 
the meaning of it all, instead of dwelling on the 
sensations and the actual process by which one 
is becoming free, one's thought need never be 
oppressed by a sense of the stern necessity which 



107 

compels one to suffer; nor will it become en- 
tangled in matter, as though that were the all in 
all. 

Once more, then, the opinion we put into a 
thing determines its effect upon us. The direc- 
tion of mind is fundamental. We become like 
that which we feed upon. If we go regularly to 
the theatre, if we read sensational and realistic 
novels, if we are intent on making money, if we 
live for pleasure or self alone, we draw the 
thought into a channel corresponding to the 
ideas on which the mind habitually dwells. If 
we associate with those who are morally and 
spiritually our superiors, we are made better by 
giving them our attention. If we investigate a 
certain line of phenomena alone, we become 
specialists, if not extremely narrow, in our way 
of thinking. If we reason, the world becomes 
rational to us; and our fears and vagaries die for 
want of an intelligible basis. Best of all, if we 
dwell upon the ideal Self, which is making the 
most of us it can, the whole life is made purer 
and more unselfish. But most vital of all is the 
thought of the last chapter; namely, that, if we 
look toward matter, toward physical sensation 
and disease, we call forth the energies in that 
direction, and build up through the subcon- 
scious mind and the spiritual matter a condition 
which corresponds to it, whereas, if we maintain 



io8 

a happy, hopeful state of mind, there is a corre- 
sponding expansion and lightness of the whole 
being. 

The nature of suffering is therefore already in 
part explained; for, if our beliefs and directions 
of mind have such a powerful influence in the 
mere interpretation of matter, they must be 
equally powerful in determining our states of 
suffering. Recent literature has gone so far as 
to affirm that all disease is mental, a mere error 
of the mind. Yet it is evident from the fore- 
going discussion that the direction of mind is not 
all. It is the controlling factor, but is at times 
itself controlled. People do not consciously 
think themselves into disease or simply believe 
they have a certain malady. The subconscious 
mind, wherein we turn over and make our own 
the ideas and impressions that come to us, is a 
far more potent factor in our experience than the 
mere conscious thought. The influence of our 
opinions and habitual beliefs, our fears and tra- 
ditional theories of disease, is so subtle, so 
closely connected with every aspect of life, that 
we are almost wholly unconscious of its power 
over us. We do not see how our states of mind 
can become translated into bodily conditions; 
and consequently we do not include these subtle 
effects in our interpretations of disease, until we 
learn that the direction of mind carries the 



109 

whole energy of the being with it, because it 
takes form in spiritual matter. Human experi- 
ence is most surely what we make it by our 
thought, but in that one word "thought" is in- 
volved the whole individuality and being of 
man. Our inquiry has taught us little if it 
have not shown conclusively that experience is a 
synthesis of objective and subjective elements; 
that even in the simple experience of physical 
sensation there is present not only the substan- 
tial basis for which the materialist contends, but 
also the thought, the conscious ego, which 
makes our life primarily mental. If the reader 
will bear this dual aspect of experience in mind, 
he cannot misunderstand this chapter. 

It is clear, then, that suffering is a state of 
the whole individual. Every one who has given 
much attention to the subject of disease from 
this broader point of view must be convinced of 
this. In fact, from this point of view it makes 
little difference what the physical malady be 
called; for on the disposition of the patient de- 
pends the nature and intensity of the disease. 
Back of all chronic invalidism there is usually a 
selfish nature or one that is hard to influence, 
whose traits of character are made known in 
every aspect of the disease. On the other hand, 
an unselfish person, devoted to a life of self- 
denial, or one who is absorbed in congenial work, 



no 

is apt to be freest from disease. Those who 
have time and money to be ill, those who live in 
and for themselves, and have nothing to take 
their thought away from physical sensation, 
never lack for some symptom out of which they 
can develop ill-health; and the whole practice 
and theory of disease are ready to co-operate in 
this process. 

The very fact that so much depends on the 
temperament and beliefs of each individual ren- 
ders it difficult to describe the causes of disease. 
Some people are so very hard to influence in any 
way, and are so tenacious of a condition when 
they get into it, that a very simple malady may 
be worse than a much-dreaded disease in a case 
where the disposition is pliable. The structure 
is tight and unyielding in many cases. People 
are too exacting, too intense in thought and ac- 
tion, or too opinionated and self-assertive to be 
easily moved. In such cases the struggle is 
always severe when it comes, and nature has a 
hard task to overcome so much rigidity. Many 
suffer from mere want of the action that comes 
from physical exercise. Some live too much in 
the so-called spiritual phase of life, and are out 
of adjustment to the every-day life of the world. 
Others are starving for spiritual food, and are 
in need of mental quickening, if not of severe 
intellectual discipline. Narrow religious opin- 



Ill 

ions have a cramping effect on the whole life, 
both mental and physical. The tendency to \ 
nervous hurry is responsible for a large propor- 
tion of the more modern ailments. People dwell 
in fixed and narrow directions of mind, until 
they become cranky or insane. 

Worry and fear play an important part in all 
varieties of disease, and some people have 
scarcely a moment's freedom from some torment- 
ing belief or mental picture. Ill-will, want of 
charity, jealousy, anger, or any emotion which 
tends to draw one into self, to shut in and con- 
tract, is immediate in its effect; for, if it be 
continued, it disturbs the whole being, it is re- 
flected in the spiritual matter, and finally in the 
body, where it is treated as if it were a physical 
disease. Unrealized ambition, suppressed grief, 
continued unforgiveness, dwelling in griefs and 
troubles instead of living above them, disap- 
pointments, and a thousand unsuspected causes, 
which impede the free and outgoing expression 
of the individuality, have a corresponding effect 
on the outer being. 

We may as well turn at once, then, to the 
fundamental principle involved in all suffering; 
for there are as many kinds and causes of disease 
as there are people. Disease is not an entity 
which can seize us any way, regardless of our 
own condition. Whenever there is a disturbed 



112 

condition which invites it, there is some cause of 
this disturbance back of the mere physical state, 
just as thought influences affect us through some 
sympathetic channel or not at all. Let us, 
then, define disease as mal-adjustment to the 
forces that play upon us, and see if this defini- 
tion will hold true in all cases of suffering. If 
so, we shall find the road to health to be wise 
adjustment to the real conditions of life. We 
shall eliminate disease not by fighting it, not by 
studying its causes or doctoring its physical 
effects, but by seeing the wisdom of the better 
way. When we learn that it is a matter of 
economy never to rehearse the symptoms of dis- 
ease, never to get angry, never to cherish ill- 
will, revengeful or unforgiving thoughts, never 
to make enemies, but always to be charitable 
and friendly, kind, good-natured, and hopeful, 
we shall not need to be told how we caused our 
own dis-ease; nor shall we need to say, "I will 
not think these wrong thoughts any more," for 
they will die out of themselves. 

It is universally admitted that there is a nat- 
ural healing power resident in the body. This 
power is common to all, or nearly all, forms of 
organized life; and by observation of the higher 
animals we have learned how thoroughly and 
quickly it can cure under favorable conditions. 



H3 

Many people have learned to relax and to keep 
quiet, like the animals, by giving nature a free 
opportunity to heal their maladies. No one has 
ever discovered limits to this power, and some 
are firmly convinced of its ability to heal nearly 
every possible disease. It can knit bones to- 
gether. If one meet with an injury or merely 
get a splinter into one's finger, it immediately 
goes to work in accordance with certain laws. 
There is a gathering about the injured part, and 
an outward pressure tending to expel any obsta- 
cle foreign to the body. Every one knows that 
the healing process is impeded or quickened ac- 
cording to the way we deal with it, and it be- 
comes evident on a still closer study of the 
question that our opinions and fears have a 
strong effect upon this natural process. The 
whole process is simple and fairly well under- 
stood, so far as a mere injury is concerned. We 
rely upon it, and know how to adjust ourselves 
to it. But what happens when the equilibrium 
of the body has been interfered with in another 
way, and the vital functions impeded ? Do we 
wait as patiently for nature to heal us as when 
we meet with an accident? No, nine times out 
of ten we mistake its cause, call it a disease 
which we think we have taken, misinterpret our 
sensations, and resist the very power which 
vainly tries to heal us. This resistance, inten- 



H4 

sified by dwelling upon sensation and careful 
observation of symptoms, adds to the intensity 
of the suffering, until the trouble becomes pro- 
nounced, if not organic or chronic. Yet all 
suffering is the same from the inner point of 
view, and should be treated in the same general 
way. 

From this point of view the natural restora- 
tive power, the evolutionary force, or the spirit, 
in whatever form the immanent Life appeal to 
us, is ever trying to make itself known. On 
the physical plane it is ever ready to free the 
body from any obstacle or inharmony, and re- 
store the natural equilibrium. It is continually 
purifying, cleansing, throwing off, all that is for- 
eign. It is trying to free us from any inheri- 
tance which may cause trouble or suffering. It 
begins with us where it left off with our parents. 
Wherever we are weak, unfinished, undeveloped, 
that weak point, that undeveloped state, or that 
animal residuum, if one still be partly animal, 
and not man, is the seat of pressure from within 
of this same power, trying to make us better and 
purer. It ever penetrates nearer and nearer the 
centre of one's being, and the reason why a dis- 
turbance like the grippe is different each time it 
comes is evidently because the individual has 
changed. If one be exposed to the cold, to an 
atmosphere of contagious disease, of depression, 



u5 

or whatever the influence, the power is still 
there to protect and to heal. In all natural 
functions the power is with us, fully competent 
to secure their free and painless activity. It 
works through instinct and impulse for our wel- 
fare. On a higher plane it is operative in char- 
acter, urging us to be unselfish, to understand 
the law of growth, and to obey it. On the 
spiritual plane it is ever ready to guide and to 
inspire us, but apparently, not so aggressive 
here, since so much depends on our own recep- 
tivity and desire to learn. On all these planes 
the power is pressing upon us from within, 
trying to expand from a centre, just as the rose- 
bud expands or as the seed develops when its 
resident life is quickened. It is the power of 
God. It is beneficent, good, evolutionary, call- 
ing for trustful co-operation and restfulness on 
our part. We need not go anywhere or think 
ourselves anywhere to find it ; for it is with us 
in every moment of experience, but usually un- 
known, rejected, and opposed. 

If, then, it be asked why passion is so persist- 
ent, why evil has such power, why disease is so 
positive and real, there can be but one answer. 
The reality lies in the Power that is active with 
us, the suffering, the evil, the dis-ease in our 
mal-adjustment to it, in our ignorance of its nat- 
ure and its purpose with us. There is some- 



n6 

thing in us to be overcome, some obstacle, some 
inharmony. The restorative power is trying to 
free us from it; and, as it comes in contact with 
it, friction results. There is an agitation of the 
particles, made known to us as pain. This sen- 
sation we resist, not understanding it; and it 
becomes painful in proportion to our resistance 
to it. It grows more intense with every effort 
to endure it, to get rid of it, to doctor it; and 
so many sympathetic sensations are developed 
in different parts of the body, each with a differ- 
ent name, that it would hardly come within the 
province of this book to describe them. Every- 
thing depends on what opinion we put into the 
sensation at the outset; for the thought gives 
shape to the whole process, and either helps or 
hinders it. 

To illustrate. The case was reported not long 
ago of a lady who was suffering with severe neu- 
ralgia. In her despair she was walking the 
floor, and her physician said the pain would not 
be relieved for forty-eight hours. Word came 
to her from one who had learned that much suf- 
fering is due to resistance to the remedial power 
to "let it come." The effect was immediate. 
The lady had been nerving herself to endure the 
pain, thereby increasing the intensity which first 
caused it; and the message revealed the whole 
process to her. She relaxed mentally, and sur- 



ii7 

rendered the hold by which she had tried to 
endure the pain, became quiet, and fell asleep. 
This case is typical of a thousand others. 

Again, those whose task it is to do considera- 
ble mental work learn after a time when they 
have worked long enough ; for, if they work be- 
yond a certain point, they become aware of press- 
ure in some part of the head, from which a 
reaction is likely to follow. This is especially 
noticeable in learning a new language, taking 
up a study requiring close concentration, or any 
new occupation, art, science, or any form of 
physical exercise to which one is unaccustomed. 
One is soon conscious of fatigue, because the 
task is a new one, and habits have not yet been 
formed. The general tendency is to give up to 
the feeling of fatigue. Many become discour- 
aged at this point, and give up study or exercise, 
saying that it makes them tired, and they cannot 
bear it. 

What is this sense of fatigue? It is evidently 
due to the calling of power into a new direction. 
The new thought clarifies. It comes into con- 
tact with dense matter, with an uncultivated 
portion of the being, physical as well as mental; 
and, meeting with resistance, friction of some 
sort is the natural result. But this friction does 
not mean that one cannot exercise or study. It 
means the formation of a new habit and direc- 



1x8 

tion of mind, and the best work is done after 
one has passed this hard place. It calls upon 
one to wait a little while, and let the agitation 
cease, let the new power settle down and become 
one's own. It is nature telling one to be less 
intense for the moment, and to extend the limit 
of one's activity little by little. 

It is a mistake, then, to give up to a feeling 
of tired and of pain. By giving up to it, one's 
thought is put upon it, with the result that it 
is increased, until the consciousness is absorbed 
in physical sensation. Rightly understood, pain 
is the conflict of two elements, a higher and 
purer element coming in contact with a lower, 
and trying to restore equilibrium. It is reme- 
dial. It is beneficent, the most beneficent of all 
nature's arrangements, the best evidence of the 
unceasing devotion and presence with us in 
every minutest detail of life of a resident restor- 
ative power. Through it we are made aware 
that we have a life not wholly our own that cares 
for us, and is capable, perfectly competent, to 
take us through any possible trouble, since it is 
there only for our own good, since it is itself 
thoroughly good. 

But it is obviously the power that one should 
think of, and not of the sensation. In this way, 
if one be determined to see the good, to think of 
the outcome, one will live out of and above the 



iiq 

sensation; for all these thoughts help. The 
consciousness is either turned in one direction 
or the other. It either helps or it hinders. 
One either moves with, thinks with the current 
of life, or tries to stem it. In one direction 
the thought is turned into matter, in the other 
toward spirit. In one direction toward self, 
with a tendency to withdraw, shut in, contract; 
in the other, toward the higher Self that is with 
us, telling us to be wiser, toward all that is 
happy, hopeful, and expanding. 

These two mental attitudes may be illustrated 
by the sensation one experiences on a very cold 
day. When one comes in sudden contact with 
the cold, the first impulse is to shiver, to draw 
in and contract, whereas all who have tried it 
know that by simply letting it come, by opening 
out instead of shutting in, one does not feel as 
cold, and no harm results. In the former case, 
as in all instances of suppressed grief, fear, or 
any emotion which causes one to withdraw into 
self, that which has been shut in must be opened 
out. This the natural restorative power tries at 
once to do. A pull or a painful sensation in 
some part of the body is the result ; and, mistak- 
ing the sensation, the person, full of fear, con- 
tracts more intensely, causing the sensation to 
increase, until nature can only restore equilib- 
rium by a violent reaction, which receives the 
name of some well-known disease. 



120 

But why do we resist ? why do we withdraw 
into ourselves and into consciousness of physical 
sensation? Obviously, because we are ignorant 
of the Power that is moving upon us. We have 
been educated to believe that disease is a phys- 
. ical entity. We put the wrong thought or 
some borrowed opinion into our feelings. The 
fears and sympathetic words of friends help the 
process. The possible symptoms we are likely 
to suffer are graphically described, the memory 
of past experiences of suffering is called up, 
until finally the whole diseased condition is 
pictured out before us, and the thought is every 
moment becoming more firmly fixed in the wrong 
direction. Our whole environment tends to 
keep us in ill-health; and disease is literally 
made by man out of a simple condition, from 
which nature would have freed us had she been 
given opportunity. 

In order, then, to understand how we resist 
and cause our own suffering, we must recall the 
central thought of the preceding chapter. Life 
is primarily mental. It is the conscious ego 
that knows and feels the suffering. The sensa- 
tion, the pain, the suffering, is in consciousness. 
It is mental, and every conscious state is in- 
terpreted according to the wisdom of the think- 
ing ego behind it. Here is the starting-point of 
all subsequent experience in the outer world. 



121 

As we start, as we believe, as we think, so will 
be our experience, our suffering, or our good 
health. The reader need only pause to consider 
all that this means, to see the full bearing of a 
state of mind, in order to understand the whole 
process; for the entire personality, education, 
temperament, and the physical activities are car- 
ried with the direction of mind, and, if the 
direction be into matter, into the belief and fear 
of disease, nature has just so much more resist- 
ance to overcome. 

The leading thought of this chapter will 
therefore be lost unless the reader understand 
disease from its mental side, unless it be clear 
that the whole process is mental ; for, if this 
discussion have simply called up pictures of 
suffering and the memory of the reader's own 
struggles, without showing what lay beneath 
them, it has wholly failed in its purpose, and 
aptly illustrated the power of a wrong direction 
of mind. We are in search of a way out of suf- 
fering; and, if it is now clear that the entire 
mental attitude enters into our diseases, causing 
resistance and pain, it must also be clear that 
the same energy sent out in the right direction 
will be of the greatest help in securing health. 

Here is a vital truth. The discovery that by 
maintaining a quiet, trustful, reposeful state of 
mind, inspired by genuine understanding of the 
• 



122 

process that is actually going on, the whole 
being is kept open, permitting the natural activ- 
ities to operate unimpeded and without suffer- 
ing. It is of such vital importance that the 
remaining chapters of this volume will be 
devoted to a consideration of this most helpful 
attitude, and how to maintain it. Here is the 
turning-point away from matter, mental pictures 
of suffering and theories of disease into spirit 
and the stronger, purer, higher life, where one 
never speaks of one's self as diseased, but where 
the same Power which once made itself known 
through suffering, because one opposed it, now 
causes good health, because one moves with it. 
Here is the way of escape from the narrowing 
thought of life in the present, in time, into a 
hopeful realization of what one's experience 
means as a part of eternity; and, when one con- 
templates the end, the outcome, one is no longer 
entangled in consciousness of the means, the 
process. 

The first point to note is that one cannot 
judge by physical sensation, but should look 
beyond it. In sensitive natures the sensation of 
pain is very much exaggerated, and is no guide 
at all. Sometimes the sensation is so keen and 
the pressure reduced to such a fine point that 
one's consciousness is like a caged bird flutter- 
ing about in a vain endeavor to escape. Shut in 



123 

there with such intense activity, the wildest 
fears are aroused when there is no real cause 
for alarm. The trouble is simply very much re- 
stricted. The Power is pressing through a very 
narrow channel; and relief will come in due 
time if one be quiet, patient, not trying to en- 
dure the pain, but letting the Power complete 
its task. 

The second point is to remember that the res- 
ident Power, or Life, is always with us, and to 
think of that Life instead of dwelling upon our 
troubles. What a change would come over the 
moral world if this realization were to become a 
permanent factor in daily life! for there is obvi- 
ously no exception to the omnipresence, the 
love, of God. If one accept the doctrine of 
God's immanence, there is no logical stopping- 
place in favor of the elect. If God dwells with 
one, he dwells with all, consciously or uncon- 
sciously. If he has some purpose with one, he 
has some meaning in the lives of us all. No 
man, then, is inherently wicked. There are no 
heathen. No one is lost or ever could sink so 
low that the same Spirit that had a meaning in 
his sin could not carry him through it to a 
conscious realization of what that meaning is?) 
Once more the vital question is, What is the 
divine meaning of it all? For, if a person or 
an act has a meaning, that person or deed is 



124 

not and cannot be wholly evil, and to say that 
any act of wickedness happens despite the divine 
power is to deprive that power of the very in- 
finity and wisdom by virtue of which both God 
and the universe exist. When the emotions are 
touched, the struggle is apt to be very intense, 
and more likely to be misunderstood. The im- 
manent Life, moving upon man where he is 
weak and undeveloped, through instinct, pas- 
sion, and impulse, produces restlessness, which 
in turn causes him to rush now into this thing 
and now into that, and perhaps commit a crime 
even before he is aware of what he is doing. 
The very tendencies and instincts which would 
guide him in his development, if he understood 
them, are misdirected. An impulse blesses or 
curses, according to the opinion of it, the atti- 
tude towards it, and the way in which it is 
followed, blindly or intelligently. Man never 
conquers himself by self-suppression any more 
than by indulgence, but by adjustment to the 
forces of his own being. 

The meaning of much of our moral suffering 
and evil is, then, to teach the right use of our 
powers; and moral misery and degradation will 
probably continue until the lesson be learned. 
All cases of sickness, misery, evil, wrong, de- 
mand better self-comprehension. If there be one 
genera] meaning which applies to them all, it is, 



125 

in one word, progress, — the effort of the Spirit 
to give us freedom. If we understood this, we 
should have a larger sympathy and charity for 
the whole human race, and be spared much suf- 
fering over the sins and crimes of others, and 
should look for the meaning, the Spirit, behind 
all wrong acts and all degraded lives. 

The one great question, then, in all problems 
of suffering and evil, whether in personal expe- 
rience, in history, in the animal world, or in 
present human society, is this : What is God 
doing with us? What is the ideal toward which 
the immanent Life is moving through us? All 
secondary questions reduce themselves to this ; 
for everything goes to show that the universe is 
a system, an organism, an adjustment of means 
to ends for the benefit and development of the 
whole, inspired by one grand purpose, and pro- 
ceeding from a Spirit that put all wisdom into 
the great world-plan. We did not make the 
world-order. We cannot change it; and, if our 
life in it be full of misery, it is for us to dis- 
cover how we make that misery, how we rebel, 
how we resist, and what the order means for us 
and through our lives. 

If a nation be torn by internal troubles, by 
wars and wrangling of conflicting parties, it is 
evident that it has not yet learned the great les- 



126 

son of human brotherhood, and that its troubles 
must continue in one form or another until it 
discover what the evolutionary energy means, 
what it is trying to make known through these 
very conflicts. Our own nation, standing as it 
does for freedom, progress, and industry, has 
already made a great advance toward this larger 
fellowship as compared with its more warlike 
neighbors and competitors. It will undoubtedly 
be the first nation also to settle the conflict 
between rich and poor; for here, too, it has 
brought the issue forward more rapidly than 
other nations. It is learning one of the great 
lessons of evolution; and the poor must suffer 
until the two classes learn their respective and 
brotherly relations to each other, their need of 
each other, and their common goal. 

Contest and controversy will continue in the 
same way between science and religion, between 
the great religions and the sects into which 
many religions are divided, until men learn that 
all truth is one and universal, and does not de- 
pend on any book or any person, but is the in- 
herent property of all, trying to make itself 
known through these very controversies, and 
revealed in every fact of life. Theory and prac- 
tice will also be at variance until it be clear that 
they are one, that what a man does he believes, 
regardless of his boasted theory. Impulse or 



127 

instinct will be man's guide until he learns 
what is behind it, until he stops to reflect and 
to act intelligently with, not against, the forces 
of his own being; for thoughtlessness is the be- 
h\ setting sin of man. A large proportion of the \j 
p crimes committed by him would be prevented if m 
-If) he stopped to consider the consequences, not 
only the suffering which would be caused to 1 
others, but his own severe punishment, caused 
solely by his own acts, because action and reac- 
tion are invariably equal. 

Suffering, then, is intended to make man 
think. Behind all experience moves one great 
aspiring Power, developing and perfecting the 
world. It moves straight toward its goal un- 
ceasingly and without permanent hindrance. 
Wherein man is adjusted to it, he is already free 
from suffering. He moves with it, and knows 
how to be helped by it. But wherein he still 
acts ignorantly, he suffers, and is obviously sure 
to be in conflict until he understands the law of 
growth. Man has been defined as a pleasure- 
loving animal. He is lazy, and will postpone 
thinking for himself or try to shift his respon- 
sibility until he learns that everything depends 
on the development of individuality and of indi- 
vidual thought. But a day comes when he be- 
gins to reflect and to see the meaning of it all. 



128 

Everywhere, in the outer world, in history, in 
politics, in religion, he finds two forces contend- 
ing with each other. Turning to his own nature, 
he finds the same, a higher, a rational, a moral 
and spiritual self contending with a lower, an 
impulsive, an animal self. He sees that he 
must obey the one and neglect the other, or, 
better, lift the other to a higher plane. He 
sees that evil is a relative term, depending on 
our point of view, and that conduct which seems 
perfectly justifiable on one plane of existence is 
condemned on a higher plane, where different 
standards prevail. It becomes clear that virtue 
or goodness can only be attained through an ex- 
perience full of contrasts and friction, an experi- 
ence which calls out the best that is in us, — 
true sympathy, love, and character. The mean- 
ing of his own mysterious past becomes clear. 
He sees the rich compensation for all that he 
has suffered in the wisdom and character it has 
brought him. And, finally, in this far-reaching 
adjustment of means to ends he recognizes the 
love of God, and proves to his own satisfaction 
that love really dwells at the heart of the 
universe. 

The discovery, then, that there is no escape 
from the operation of cause and effect, neither 
mental nor physical, is a turning-point in the 
progressive career of man; for the majority still 



129 

persuade themselves that they will somehow be 
excused. Suffering is only necessary to bring 
us to a knowledge of the law, to bring us to 
a certain point; and it will persist until that 
point be reached. Our experience of to-day is 
conditioned by our past life. It is what we have 
passed through which alone makes it possible for 
us to stand where we do to-day. Consequently, 
what we do and think to-day will largely govern 
our experience of to-morrow and of all future 
days. Fate has not decided everything for us 
after all; for it was by our own consent, uncon- 
sciously, thoughtlessly, and consciously, that we 
suffered. Our fate is that through our individ- 
uality something is bound to come forth, for the 
resistless power of Almighty God is behind it. 
Our freedom lies in choosing whether to move 
with progress or against it; for man may evi- 
dently continue to sin, to oppose, and misuse 
the very power that would bless him, and to 
postpone the lesson which at sometime and some- 
where he is fated to learn. If, then, in any 
case the result will sometime be the same, it is 
a matter of economy to learn the real course of 
events as soon as possible, since the law of ac- 
tion and reaction is eternal. 

As hard, then, as it may seem to be compelled 
to suffer the results of our own unwise conduct, 
it is in this discovery that we learn the meaning 



13° 

of suffering and the way out of it. Once more, 
then, we must look beyond physical sensation to 
the conscious man behind it, choosing, willing, 
determining his conduct and his pain or pleasure 
by his direction of mind. It is impossible in 
one chapter to consider suffering in all its 
phases; but, if this central thought be clear, if 
the reader has stopped to consider the intimate 
relationship of God to man in every moment of 
life, these neglected problems will be equally 
clear, for that relationship must be universal. 
Not all suffering is evolutionary. Not every 
evil act has its discernible meaning. Most of 
our suffering is purely incidental, passing off 
without leaving us any the wiser; but all suffer- 
ing, all evil, may become evolutionary. Every 
slightest experience will teach us something if 
we question it, and will yield its message of 
hope. This is the chief value of all experience 
and of the present discussion; for the final mean- 
ing of suffering is hope, the last word of this 
chapter is "hope," the message of the Spirit as 
it speaks to us in moments of despair, in times of 
trouble, throughout life, throughout history, in 
all evolution, is a grand inspiring Hope. 



VI. 

ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE. 

In one of the mos<" secluded of Alpine valleys, 
where the steam whistle has never broken the 
native stillness, nor the progress of science in- 
truded on the confines of mediaeval tradition, 
lies one of the most remarkable villages in 
the world. The traveller, as he enters this 
unique town, feels that he has suddenly stepped 
into another world ; for the people inspire him 
with an unwonted reverence, and an atmosphere 
of Sabbath stillness rests over all the valley. 
One all-controlling idea pervades the town, and 
is alike absorbing to every man, woman, and 
child that lives there. The village is Oberam- 
mergau; and here once in ten years representa- 
tives of all civilization come to witness the 
world-renowned Passion Play. For hundreds of 
years this play has been given ten summers in 
a century by these simple peasants, and their 
entire lives are devoted to preparation for it. 
To take the part of the Christ is the summit of 
their ambition. They feel it a solemn duty to 
give the play, and from childhood their lives 
are shaped by this ambition. In order to repre- 



132 

sent a certain character, they practise the most 
careful self-denial. They try to mould their 
lives in accordance with the qualities of that 
character, and they dwell on it and rehearse it 
year in and year out. And this is why they are 
so remarkable. They are shaped by an ideal. 
They have one object in view, and in their peas- 
ant simplicity and catholic faith they are willing 
to exclude every other. When they appear in 
the play, they make no affectation. They sim- 
ply represent in actual life what they have so 
long dwelt upon as an ideal. And this ideal has 
left its stamp on everything associated with the 
town and its people. 

It is a rare privilege for the student of the 
human mind to be among these people for a 
time, and to witness the play; for there in 
actual practice and in striking simplicity is the 
ideal of all character-building, of all co-opera- 
tion with evolution, of all adjustment to life, — 
namely, to have an object in view which we 
never lose sight of, and which we gradually real- 
ize, day by day and year by year. Life for the 
most of us is vastly more complicated than for 
the peasant of Oberammergau ; but the principle 
of character-building is just the same, and just 
as simple and effective. 

What this principle is we have been consider- 
ing from the very start; that is, to learn the real 



133 

conditions of our progressive life, to gain some 
knowledge of the deepest law of our being, and 
then to conform our conduct to those conditions 
and that highest law. We find ourselves part of 
a great Reality, made known to us through in- 
ternal and external sense, everything which 
reveals it being real. This simple act of con- 
sciousness, even though we know the Reality 
immediately, is immensely complicated; and 
our interpretation alike of its nature and of 
its meaning depends on temperament, education, 
mental and physical surroundings, and a hundred 
other conditions. Opinion, belief, fear, preju- 
dice, hypnotic influences, and various subtle 
forces enter into and color our thought. We 
misinterpret sensation. We become the prey of 
our own fancies, and yield to the stronger minds 
about us. We are ignorant of the forces that 
play upon us, and consequently are not adjusted 
to them. We suffer, and we witness a vast 
amount of suffering which we seem powerless to 
prevent. But one law characterizes our conduct 
both in health and in disease. The central 
thought in consciousness for the moment or 
through habit, the direction of mind, shapes our 
lives, so that we really lead a life of mind. We 
live in a world partly of our own making, partly 
the product of all past evolution, both mental 
and physical, but a world which happily reveals 



134 

a progressive order to which we can adjust our- 
selves in co-operation with the Spirit behind 
and within it, a world which has a purpose, a 
meaning with us, and with our individuality, 
which experience is trying to make plain. 

It is evident, then, that at every step in 
our inquiry we must discriminate between the 
higher Self which never changes, which has a 
meaning in our lives, which possesses us, needs 
us, is sufficient for us, and the lower self which 
is constantly changing, obeying now this whim 
and now that. In proportion as we make this 
discrimination and obey the higher Self are we 
free from conflict and suffering, and adjusted to 
life. If we abandon our fears, cease to com- 
plain, to rebel, and learn the real economy of 
our situation in life, then this higher Self has | 
free access to us. It meets no opposition. Its 
purpose is made known without suffering. We 
enjoy the only true freedom in co-operation with/ 
the omnipresent Helper, whom we once de- 
spised. Gradually, a simple system of conduct 
and of adjustment to life takes shape in our 
minds, until, like the peasant preparing to take 
part in the play, we know no other ideal. To 
suggest this ideal so far as one person can 
indicate it for another is the purpose of this 
chapter. 



i35 

But let us first be perfectly sure that we 
understand how conduct is shaped by an idea. 

When we leave our home, for instance, to go 
to the business portion of the town or city in 
which we live, it is usually because we have 
some definite object in view. Our conduct for 
the time is guided by a transient desire; and, 
in order to carry out this desire, we adjust our- 
selves to a certain arrangement of natural phe- 
nomena, and make use of certain mechanisms 
invented by man. We take a car or carriage. 
We are compelled to follow certain streets in 
order to reach our destination. We must avoid 
collision with other people, with electric cars 
and carriages. We must good-naturedly take 
the situation as we find it. And all these ac- 
tions are governed, almost unconsciously to us, 
by a single desire; and we keep this end in view 
until we attain it. 

Thus we might analyze the conduct of any day 
or any moment, and find that wish or desire con- 
trols everywhere. In learning a language, we 
keep the object in view of reading and speaking 
it with fluency, and calmly work for years until 
we attain it. We make an invention because we 
need or desire it. The need or desire opens us 
to the means of fulfilling our wish. The artist 
has an ideal in view which he is ever striving 
to realize on canvass or in marble. Literature 



136 

takes such form as our desires give it, modified 
by the degree of cultivation we have attained. 
We change the character of our buildings, of our 
homes, of our institutions, our philosophy, our 
religion, our conceptions of the divine nature, 
just as rapidly as we ourselves change, and to 
the degree that our ideals and circumstances are 
modified by these inner changes. We endeavor 
to understand nature, life, history, our entire 
surroundings better. We then readjust our- 
selves in conformity to our better wisdom. And 
in every wise readjustment we are compelled to 
adopt nature's sure and measured method of evo- 
lution. We look for changes in and through 
the very conditions of politics and society, of 
moral and spiritual degenerateness, which we 
once sought to revolutionize from the outside. 

All this seems simple and evident enough 
when one's attention is called to it. But do we 
follow this easiest and most natural of methods 
when we try to transform character and to secure 
better health by mental means ? Are we not apt 
to say, This shall be so; to exert our wills, to 
forget the higher Self, to strain after ideals, to 
claim that which is not yet true and can only 
progressively become so, to expect to transform 
ourselves too quickly, to dwell in thought some- 
where way off in the clouds or in the distant fut- 
ure, instead of wisely adjusting ourselves to the 



137 

eternal now? Is the will really so powerful 
that it can abolish time? What is the will, and 
what is the nature of its power? 

When I raise my arm and move my hand, the 
various motions which I am compelled to make 
seem to be controlled by my will. Yet I know 
very little about that apparently simple process. 
The hand and arm are moved by certain muscles, 
the muscles by a certain nervous discharge, 
which obeys definite laws utterly beyond the 
power of my will to control. I simply desire 
my hand to move in a particular way; and, lo ! 
a wonderful mechanism, perfected by nature long 
ago, is set into activity. The complex motions 
by which I move my arm and hand are matters 
of habit rather than of will, and I use nature's 
mechanism almost unconsciously. The whole 
body responds to my thought in the same man- 
ner, and the great outside world goes on al- 
most regardless of my will. 

What, then, is my will? Has it no power? 
Simply this, says the new psychology, as 
expounded by Professor James, — attention. 
"Whatever determines attention determines 
action." The child ceases his play, and turns 
his whole activity in some new direction because 
his attention has been attracted. We thread our 
way among the obstructions of a busy thorough- 
fare because our thought is fixed on some distant 



138 

object. The hypnotist shapes the conduct of his 
subject when he has gained control of the sub- 
ject's attention. 

Will is a direction of mind with a definite 
object in view. It is the mental or conscious 
side of physical conduct, and as such it wields 
great power. It is thought fixed in and calling 
force into a given channel. Will uses power. 
It gives definite shape to power. It opens one 
to power, so that "I will" is equivalent to "I 
am ready." A person with a strong will is one 
who persistently keeps a desired object in view. 
The human power lies in the desire, the divine 
or natural in that which fulfils it. Here is a 
very important distinction. By longing for an 
object we unconsciously put ourselves in an atti- 
tude to attain it. We gravitate toward it. We 
exclude everything else in our efforts to attain 
it. All else is merely overdoing the matter. 

Again and again we forget that will is 
a directing power, and act as though it were a 
force which we must exert. But my will alone 
is powerless to move my arm. I will to move 
it, and at the same time co-operate with nature's 
mechanism and my own well-established habits. 
If I kept saying, "I will move it," "Now I will 
move it," it would remain motionless. By say- 
ing, "I will do this," "I will have things thus 
and so," we are apt to get into a nervous strain, 



139 

to assert our own power, our own selfishness, as 
though the human will were all-powerful. Self- 
conceit and ignorance of the larger and diviner 
life accompany such self-assertion, and close the 
door to the higher power. The Spirit quietly 
withdraws at the approach of such assertion. 

The little flower, bursting from the bud into 
the glad sunshine, lifts up and opens itself to 
the light and warmth. It is openness, readi- 
ness, receptivity that is demanded of us. The 
thought put into the mind at night which wakes 
one at a given hour in the morning has its effect 
if we trust, not if we are anxious lest we over- 
sleep. New ideas and new power seldom come 
to us while we scrutinize our mental processes 
and try to catch and to control the inspiration as 
it comes. But ideas and wishes sown in the 
mind like seed seem to have a wonderful power 
of growth and possibility of fulfilling our de- 
sires. The wisely chosen ideal modifies our life 
by a scarcely discernible process when it is thus 
sown in confidence and expectation. We only 
know that in a thoughtful moment we saw our 
error, and concluded that it would be wiser to 
act thus and so, and then dismissed the thought l 
quietly and trustfully. 

The process is wonderfully simple if it be not 
overdone, like the little boy who digs up his 
garden every day to see if his seeds be growing. 



140 

Some have mastered it sufficiently so that the 
night's rest depends largely on their last 
thoughts before losing consciousness in slumber, 
or have learned to 'control the thoughts of an 
entire day by giving them wise direction in the 
morning. There is a wonderful possibility here 
for those who learn how to co-operate with their 
own deepest evolution, through wise and trustful 
adjustment to it. It is probable, too, that a 
large part of our troubles and many a painful 
malady would be cured by the same simple 
means if we could once learn the art of patient, 
restful adjustment, if we would let nature heal 
us without resistance or interference. But we 
nerve ourselves to endure, and thereby resist nat- 
ure's remedial power. We are impatient to get 
well, forgetting that there is a natural law of re- 
covery, and that nature tends to restore the lost 
equilibrium as rapidly, and only as rapidly, as 
it can be done well. 

There is a difference, then, between ignoring 
a trouble, between neglecting to take proper 
care of ourselves, and that wise direction of 
thought which in no way hinders while it most 
surely helps to remedy our ills. There is strong 
reason for believing that there is a simple, nat- 
ural way out of every trouble, that kind Nature, 
which is another name for an omniscient God, is 



141 

ever ready to do her utmost for us. We can go 
through almost any experience if we feel that 
the power residing within is equal to the occa- 
sion. When we cease to look upon any experi- / 
ence as too hard, we have made a decided step/ 
in wise adjustment to life. Life itself becomes' 
easier and happier when we make this grand 
discovery that within each human soul there is 
a sufficient resource for every need along the 
line of the individual career. We can conquer 
anything that lies between us and our destiny. 
It would be strange, indeed, if, granting that an 
infinitely intelligent Spirit sent us here for 
some purpose, this were not so. It would be 
strange, too, if any experience in the individual 
career were without its meaning in the divine 
economy. If, then, we can assume this, too; if, 
in place of the cruel fate which, as we thought, 
cheated us out of our just dues and defeated our 
hopes, there is a larger Fate that somehow 
needed for us just what we passed through, there 
is no room for regret, no cause for complaint, 
since in regretting and complaining we are find- 
ing fault with Omniscience itself. It is not for 
us to say that life is not worth living. Our life, 
such as it is, belongs to a grander Life, to which 
we must ever turn in order to see the meaning 
of our own. And experience becomes infinitely 
pleasanter the moment we realize the futility of 
all regret, complaint, and opposition. 



142 

It is equally necessary to note the difference 
between wise adjustment to circumstances which 
for the time being we cannot alter, and that utter 
contentment and ease in our surroundings which 
leads to inactivity and invalidism. Some 
people are too well adjusted to their environ- 
ment. They need a sudden stirring, like an 
alarm of fire, to wake them up. They do not 
grow. They are selfish, and lack even the rudi- 
ments of true self-denial, as though the world 
existed for their own benefit. Or perhaps they 
are self-satisfied, and fail to see the need of 
further mental evolution. They are very well 

, contented, polite and agreeable, so long as noth- 

'■ ing comes to disturb them ; and they take care 
that nothing shall disturb them, so far as their 

tpower extends. If they are sick, every one must 
become a servant. Every sensation is watched 
and carefully nursed. Everything must give 
way to their wishes. Everybody must help the 
matter on by expressions of sympathy and de- 
votion. But place such people on their own re- 
sources, put them where something does come 
to disturb them, and they are utterly helpless. 
Progress brings conflict. We need to be stirred 
once in a while, and put where we must show 

| what we are really worth. Then comes the real 
test. If we are adjusted, not to some transient 
set of circumstances which we personally try to 






143 

maintain undisturbed, but to life as a whole so 
far as we understand it, we shall be able to meet 
any emergency, to meet it manfully, trustfully, 
and contentedly. There is no better test of 
one's philosophy than at these times, when we 
are called upon to act as if we believed it true. 
There is no better way to prepare for such 
emergencies than to meet the circumstances of 
daily life as though we were superior to them. 

It is a matter of economy for ourselves, it is 
a source of happiness to ourselves and our 
friends, if we habitually look for the good wher- 
ever we go, and in this way show our superiority 
to all that is belittling and mean. We shall 
soon find no time left for complaint and discour- 
agement if we undertake this happy task with a 
will. We shall discover new traits of character 
in our friends, new sources of enjoyment in triv- 
ial things, and new pleasures even in the 
weather, that potent cause of useless complaint 
and regret. New beauties will reveal them- 
selves in nature and in human life. We shall 
gradually learn to see life through the artist's 
eyes, to look for its poetry, its harmony, its di- 
vine meaning. 

The traveller in foreign lands is compelled to 
meet experience in just such a happy mood as 
this. He knows that each day is bound to bring 
its annoyances; and he determines to meet 



144 

them philosophically, and, if possible, to see 
their comical side. In a foreign land one makes 
it an occupation to hunt up all that is curious 
and interesting. The spirits are quickened, 
enthusiasm is aroused; and one notices a hun- 
dred little effects, changes, and beauties in sky 
and landscape, on the street and in people, that 
are passed unnoticed at home. We make note 
of them in order to describe them to our friends. 
Imagination lends its charm even to the most 
disagreeable experiences, and all our journey- 
ings stand out in the vistas of memory painted 
in golden hues. 

Such experiences should give us the cue in 
looking for the good at home. It is well, too, 
in matters of disagreement with friends, to pre- 
serve the same large spirit and breadth of view, 
remembering that we have more points of agree- 
ment than of disagreement with them, that we 
all belong to the same infinite Love, and all 
mean the same great truth; but we cannot quite 
say it. It is rather better to be tolerant, to 
have a large charity for people, than to expect 
them to be like ourselves. (One person of a 
kind is usually enough.^ God apparently needs 
us all. N < Those who haveHearned to think, espe- 
cially those who realize the meaning of evolu- 
tion, are usually aware of their faults; and 
encouragement is what they most need. People 



145 

I do nearly as well as they can under the circum- 
| stances and with their scant wisdom. If we 
know a better way, it will become evident to 
\ them if we practise it. If they offend us or get 
j angry, we have all the more cause for charity 
» and good feeling. We need not suffer in such a 
case unless we put ourselves on the same plane, 
/ and get angry, too. There is no quicker or 
more smarting rebuke than to receive an affront 
in silence or in perfect good feeling. There is 
no better evidence of a large and generous nat- 
ure than immediately to forgive and to forget 
every injury, and thereby to be superior to the 
petty feelings of resentment, pride, and unfor- 
giveness, which work mischief alike to the one 
who holds them and to the one who has done the 
injury. We are surely to blame if we suffer, 
since everything depends on our own attitude. 
If we thus give our attention to building up 
character, broad, charitable, and true, the wrong 
thoughts will disappear through mere lack of 
attention. Psychology once more helps us here, 
and says that we can attend to but one object at 
a time. Science tells us, too, that in the evolu- 
tion of the animal world organs which remain 
unused ultimately disappear, while the develop- 
ment and perfection of an organ accompanies its 
use. We need not then reason our erroneous 
thoughts away. Usually, it is sufficient to see 



146 

that we are in error, to learn that all these fears, 
resentments, morbid thoughts, and complaints 
affect our health and happiness. The explana- 
tion is the cure. 

Nor is it necessary to analyze sensation and 
try to discover the various moods that cause our 
trouble. No one who has passed through the 
torments of self-consciousness, to find only one's 
own insignificant self looming up through the 
introspective mist, like a repellent spectre from 
which one would fain be free, will ever advise 
another to brave these torments. The human 
self with the divine Self as a background is the 
only picture of the inner life which one can bear 
to look at long. This picture will paint itself. 
The other is of our own vain contriving. In 
those moments of calm reflection when one 
ceases to analyze self, and lays aside the cares 
of the busy world, the deeper consciousness will 
be quickened. One falls into a gentle reverie. 
Pleasant memories and mysterious experiences 
come before the thought. One sees wherein one 
has failed to practise one's truest wisdom, or 
sees the meaning of some experience that seemed 
hard and inexplicable at the time. Then, as 
one gradually turns in thought from personal 
experience to the larger experience of humanity 
in its relation to the great Over-Soul, all these 
varied events and personalities will be knit to- 



147 

gether in relations unsuspected before. One 
will have new glimpses of truth, — that deeper 
truth which comes unbidden, but which is ever 
ready to make itself known when one is intui- 
tively awake and receptive. 

A synthesis of these spontaneous reflections 
will give one more genuine knowledge of self 
than any purely introspective process. And 
likewise in any moment of trouble or sickness, 
when we need help, it is better to open out like 
the flower, receptively, quietly, expectantly, 
conscious of the nearness of the divine Helper, 
than to pursue our own thought, and try to solve I 
the difficulty. We are too active as a rule, too 
sure of our own way, too much absorbed in our 
own plans and fears. The Spirit demands but 
little of us, quiet, lowly listening; but it does 
ask this much. Here is the real power and 
value of silence. All that we perceive in these 
happy moments spent in quiet reflection has a 
lasting effect upon us. It is then that we grow. 
It is then that ideals take shape, and become 
permanent directions of mind. It is then that 
we get newly adjusted to life; for, after all, this 
task is never completed. Something new and 
perplexing is ever coming to test us ; and always 
there is this one resource, to find our inward 
centre, and there to stand firm and contented. 

It is also in these more deeply reflective mo- 



148 

merits that we learn our own limitations and 
possibilities. We become aware of that deepest 
tendency which lies at the basis of temperament 
and personality, through which the great Spirit 
speaks. We learn a deeper and truer self-reli- 
ance, which ultimately means trust in God. We, 
learn through experience when to obey this; 
inner moving and when the impulse is merely 
our own personal desire. In a word, conduct 
reduces itself to one simple rule : Study to know 
when you are moving along the lines of your 
own deepest nature, your own keenest sense of 
what is wise and right, and when you are off 
the track. It is right and necessary to have cer- 
tain standards by which conduct may be judged, 
to have a philosophy which teaches one to look 
on all sides of an issue and to reason carefully. 
It is well to look to friends, to public teachers 
and books, for help in all humility and willing- 
ness to learn. But standards vary. The con- 
science of a people changes from age to age. 
Even intuition must be verified, r It must find 
support in reason, and undergo the test of ex- 
perience. The surest and simplest method, for 
those who have become aware of such guidance, 
is to await the divine emphasis, to act when the 
whole being speaks, to move along those lines in 
which no faculty of one's being interposes an 
obstacle. All ultimate questions of right and 



149 

duty should obviously be settled within the 
sacred limits of one's own personality, where 
the great God speaketh, if he speaks at all. 
"The soul's emphasis is always right," says 
Emerson. 

To some this doctrine may seem the essence 
of individualism, urging one, as it does, to find 
a ready resource for all trouble in one's own 
nature. Yet, rightly interpreted, it is by no 
means selfishly exclusive, any more than that 
ideal of human society towards which, in the 
opinion of many thinkers, the present evolution 
of the social order has all the while been tend- 
ing; that is, it seeks to give the individual 
mental freedom and free opportunity for devel- 
opment within the limits of what is required of 
him as a member of society. We have thus far 
considered the problem of adjustment in its 
simplest form. All that has been said in the 
foregoing chapters properly enters into the ques- 
tion, — the nature and relationship of the imma- 
nent God to his manifestations, and all that we 
know about those manifestations. The world is 
an organism. Society is an organism. Human 
minds as well as human customs and social in- 
stitutions are evolving together. One by one, / 
and individual by individual, we are knit to- 
gether in one great mental, social, and universal 



150 

fabric. Each need, each aspect of the organism, 
the adjustment of part to part and of means to 
ends, demands special consideration. We owe 
certain duties to ourselves in order to preserve 
our physical well-being, in the fulfilment of 
which we are aided by all that science has dis- 
covered concerning the human body, its evolu- 
tion, its care, and the need of exercise. We 
owe other duties to our fellow-men in order to 
preserve the well-being of society; and in this 
we receive greater aid each year through the 
rapidly advancing theories of moral conduct, of 
universal religion and sociology. We need and 
long to know what is right in all cases, to know 
what is our duty. Ethics enters into every act 
and thought of human life. We owe it to our- 
selves, to our neighbor, to the universal brother- 
hood or the divine fatherhood, to be doing 
something in particular all the time, to choose 
this line of conduct and reject that. And this 
knowledge of duty should rest on a scientific in- 
terpretation of the universe, on a study of life in 
its total relations, including the discovery, so 
far as we can make it, of whither events are 
tending. 

No one can think deeply about life without 
considering these larger issues. But, even in 
approaching the problem of adjustment in its 
simpler and more individual aspects, we discover 



i5i 

many ways in which we can pay our large debt 
to society. One cannot develop very far beyond 
the less thoughtful masses without leading them 
on; and, since man is an imitative creature, there 
is no surer way of helping him than by setting 
him a nobler example. Our uncharitable, our 
fault - finding and fear - carrying words and 
thoughts are just as harmful to others as to our- 
selves. When we overcome these wrong habits 
of thought, our friends will not be slow in notic- 
ing the change. With the advent of a wiser 
habit of looking for the good, of getting encour- 
agement out of everything, and of disposing of 
our troubles in a quiet way ourselves, instead of 
burdening others with them, the reaction on our 
associates will prove wonderfully helpful. 

This doctrine, then, says in a word, Be unself- 
ish; have an ideal outlook; see yourself as you 
would like to be, healthy, happy, well-adjusted 
to life, helpful, wisely sympathetic, and ever 
ready with an encouraging word, looking for the 
good, growing strong in wisdom and power, 
patiently awaiting occasions, yet always suffi- 
ciently occupied, so that you will have no time 
to be annoyed, fearful, restless, or morbid. It 
points out new ways in which we can be of ser- 
vice to our fellow-men. It makes us aware of 
our own responsibility, and shows us that life is 



152 

an individual problem. It warns us never to 
look upon that problem as too difficult to solve, 
if we approach it moderately, hopefully, and full. 
of cheer. 

Is it not a duty we owe ourselves and other 
people to be supremely happy, forever young in 
spirit? We have all met those whose very being 
seems to thrill from some unseen source of hap- 
piness, who seem to know by instinct that all is 
good. What influence can resist such a power, 
and what trouble can long weigh down such a 
bounding spirit? It is like the glad song of the 
birds, which will not let us be melancholy, or 
the feeling of worship for the source of all good, 
which wells up in the presence of some beautiful 
landscape. It is health. It opens one to the! 
renewing, the indwelling energy, by which we 
exist, whereas fear contracts, and causes one to 
shut out that energy. There is something pro- 
foundly unhealthy in our thought if any trouble 
whatever leads one to suppress this happy ten- 
dency. Its source is eternal, its spirit peren- 
nial. Its power in counteracting the selfish and 
morbid tendencies in life is boundless. It is 
not to be sought for its own sake alone. It is 
not the end of life. It is rather the spontaneous 
accompaniment of the highest usefulness, the 
deepest worship, the truest love, the greatest 
thankfulness, the profoundest repose and trust in 






153 

God. It is the truest sanity. It marks a well- . 
balanced mind. Science and philosophy do not 
always satisfy the soul. Reason leaves room for 
doubt. Pessimism and despair are ready to fol- 
low, if we do not check them by some happy j 
thought. The greatest assurance, the one that 
never fails, is this indefinable somewhat, this f 
happy restfulness, which no doubt can shake, 
this feeling that we are right, this sublime faith, ! 
this unfathomable intuition, which leaves no 
barrier between the soul and its perennial 
source. A sense of trust and thankfulness wells 
up with this deep assurance, a feeling of joy in 
the blessing of existence, which defies the sub- 
tlest scrutiny, which unites the simplicity of * 
childhood with the profoundest reaches of man- 
hood's thought. It is well to take note of its 
conditions when it comes, to observe what a 
range of thought and sentiment is opened up by 
genuine happiness, and then, when the spirit of 
depression weighs heavily upon us, to recall 
these conditions, to let the morbid thought lan- 
guish for mere want of attention, to stir one's 
self, to arouse a forced happiness if one cannot 
shake off the heavy spirit in any other way. 

It is a matter of economy to be happy, to view 
life and all its conditions from the brightest 
angle. It enables one to seize life at its best. 
It expands the soul. It calls power to do our 



154 

bidding. It renews. It awakens. It is a far 
truer form of sympathy than that mistaken sense 
of communion with grief and suffering which 
holds our friends in misery instead of helping 
them out of it. It is a far nobler religion than 
that creed which causes one to put on a long 
face, and look as serious as possible. Once 
more, there is something wrong in our philoso- 
phy if it sanctions melancholy and pessimistic 
thoughts. We have not yet looked deep enough 
into life. We have never got beyond being im- 
pressed by the sadder and gloomier side of life. 
We are still thinking and acting contrary to, not 
in harmony with, the happy world of nature by 
which we are surrounded. By maintaining this^ 
mournful attitude, we show our want of faith in 
the goodness of things as much as when we fear. 
A deep, unquenchable spirit of joy is at once the 
truest evidence that we believe in the benefi- 
cence of the Father, and that we have penetrated 
deep enough into life's mystery to see how best, 
most economically, most courageously and help- 
fully to take it. 

Patience, too, is a word that suggests much 
that is needful in the adjustment to life. Hard, 
indeed, is it for some to abide nature's time, 
hard to eliminate the idea that creation was 
completed long ago. Consider for a moment the 



155 

vast age of our fair earth, how many aeons of 
cosmic time it revolved in space ere vegetation 
appeared, and then pass in imagination down 
through the long cycles of struggle and develop- 
ment which led the way to the production of the 
first man, a creature with whom we would not 
own kinship. History is still young. It is 
made to-day with unwonted rapidity, and one 
can hardly keep pace with the advancing times. 
Yet nature is just as moderate as ever, and our 
century is but the bursting bud of ages of meas- 
ured preparation. Long ago the ancient Greeks 
spoke for beauty of form. Long ago Jesus spoke 
for the beauty of service. Not so long ago 
Luther spoke for freedom of conscience and 
reason. Slowly the great world is brought 
round to the perception of these great prophets, 
who stand like guide-posts, indicating the will 
of the Most High. 

Progress is just as measured in human life. 
We cannot hasten matters. We may as well 
accept the conditions of progress as we find 
them, and not postpone our lesson. My experi- 
ence of to-day is the outcome of my experience 
of yesterday, of my past life, and is conditioned 
by it. My intuition tells me of grander experi- 
ences to come. It furnishes ideals. But I can- 
not enjoy those experiences now, I cannot 
realize the ideals now, because I cannot omit 



1 5 6 

one step in my progress. I am ready, in the 
full sense of the word, only for the step which 
logically follows the one I am just now taking. 
I must not overreach nor get into a nervous 
strain. I must not let my thoughts dwell on the 
future. I must not be anxious nor assert my 
own will, for I do so at the peril of my health 
and happiness. I ought rather to live in the 
eternal now, and to understand my experience 
in the light of cause and effect. I must build 
my new future by gradual modification of the 
shifting present. I must select and reject, 
choose and neglect. 

For, despite the fact that this endless chain of 
causes and effects, whereof my fleeting experi- 
ence is a part, is law-governed and fate-driven, 
I have a wonderful amount of freedom. I can 
not only choose between accepting life's condi- 
tions trustfully, contentedly, making the most 
that is good out of them, and rebelliously com- 
plaining at them all, I can not only make of the 
world what I put into it, and thus regulate my 
own happiness and misery, but I can cause infi- 
nite misery to other people. I can sin, I can 
degrade myself lower than the animals, I can be 
thoroughly wicked and mean, — • all within cer- 
tain limits, — I can make of myself what I will; 
but I can never escape the torments, the inevita- 
ble results of my own acts. Not all the creeds, 



157 

1/ not all the good men, not all the prayers and 

sacrifices in the world, can ever change natural 

* law, or save me from the heaven or the hell 

( which I am preparing for myself by my daily 

» conduct. What I am thinking and doing day by 

1 day is resistlessly shaping my future, — a future 

j in which there is no expiation except through my 

own better conduct. No one can save me. No 

one can live my life for me. It is mine for bet- 

' / ter or for worse. If I am wise, I shall begin 

j, to-day by the simplest and most natural of all 

processes to build my own truer and better 

, world from within. As surely as the great 

| world of human thought comes round to the posi- 

/ tion of one man, so surely does the whole fabric 

\ of personal thought and action respond to our 

'i will. We have only to wait, to be patient, to 

;l renew our ideals day by day, to remember that 

; ^ ideas have life, regenerative life, and a natural 

U law of growth. Nature and our own subcon- 

( scious mind will do the work for us. 

I Here, then, is evidently the secret of the 

whole matter. To look persistently toward the 

light, toward the good, toward what we would 

rather be, and as we would rather feel when we 

are suffering, with some happy prospect in view 

if we are morbid, with some deed of kindness in 

mind if we are idle and in need of something 

which shall absorb and fix the attention. Such 



158 

will-power as this is irresistible. It is the God 
and one that make a majority. 

Adjustment to life, then, is an individual 
problem, and varies with temperament, sur- 
roundings, and habits of thought. Its princi- 
ples are universal. First, to realize in bur own 
way the truth of Chapter II., that there is but 
one Reality, or God; that we live in God; that 
God lives in us; that he is completing us, mov- 
ing upon us through the forces, the events, the 
world in which he resides, through our weaker 
nature, through our faults, through the conflicts 
which we have so long misinterpreted, through 
pain, through happiness, and all that constitutes 
experience; that we have no power wholly our 
own, but that we use and are used by divine 
power; that we are equal to any task, any emer- 
gency, any struggle, for that great Reality is all 
there is. It is all power. God is here. Help 
is near. We need not go anywhere for it. It 
is omnipresent. It abounds. It comes to us in 
proportion to our receptivity to it, our faith in 
it, our happiness, our hope, our patience. Then 
to choose wisely what we wish to be in co-opera- 
tion with the immanent Life, since "whatever 
determines attention determines action " ; to see 
one's self not in the introspective, but in the 
divine light; to be practical in the choice of 



159 

ideals ; to be ever happy, ever young, ever hope- 
ful, and never discouraged. Conduct is thus the 
conscious adjustment of our acts to the purpose 
of the deeper Self so far as we know that 
purpose. 

But can we practise all this? If we could, 
our doctrine would be of little value. We must 
have ideals, — ideals which we can begin to real- 
ize to-day; and our discussion has been of some 
use, if it has shown the necessity of modera- 
tion, of quiet, trustful imitation of the methods 
whereby the great world of nature has come into 
being. 

Every one who has dwelt for a season in that 
joyous world of the larger hope, where one is 
lifted above self, above space and time, so that 
one seems related to the revolving orbs of space 
and to the limitless forces of the universe, knows 
that there is a sudden, almost painful descent 
to the realities of every-day life. Life is a con- 
stant readjustment. It requires a daily renewal 
of one's faith, and then a return to the tasks, 
the struggles, which at times well-nigh weigh us 
down. It means repeated failure. It means a 
thorough test of all that is in us. It often 
means trouble and discouragement whenever 
one gets new light and regenerative ideas, since 
a period of darkness similar to the decay of the 
seed in the ground follows every incoming 

y 



i6o 

of greater power. But it is priceless knowledge 
to know that we are equal to the occasion. It 
is a long step toward self-understanding when 
we learn to see in facts that once caused discour- 
agement profound reasons for hope and cheer. 
It is a decided step toward self-mastery when 
we learn to meet these ups and downs, these 
regenerative periods, in a broadly philosophical 
spirit, at once superior to our circumstances 
and to the thoughts and fears which once held 
us in their power. It is fortunate, indeed, if 
we no longer deem life's task too hard, if our 
faith be sufficiently strong to sustain us through 
the severest tests, thereby proving our fitness 
to be made better, our willingness to persist, 
though all be dark, with an iron determination 
to succeed. 



VII. 

POISE. 

The one essential, alike in the interpretation 
of life and in wise adjustment to its inevitable 
conditions, is the knowledge that there is one, 
and only one, Reality, whose being therefore 
transcends and includes our own and all that can 
ever form an object of our thought. All else is 
contained in this, all else follows from this, if 
we pursue our inquiry far enough to learn what 
that Reality is and how it is made known. The 
supreme problem is to know how best, most eco- 
nomically, most healthfully and happily, to take 
the eternal order, not simply as we find it in the 
outer world, but as it is made known within as 
a part of the life, of the very consciousness and 
substance, of that one Reality. For, if this is 
literally true, if the world-system is the self- 
realization of an infinite God, it behooves us to 
know it, to make this knowledge the guiding 
principle of life, since the universe cannot then 
be a world sent out from Deity, apart from him, 
the product of mere caprice, to be some time de- 
stroyed, when the caprice shall change. It must 
endure as long as eternity shall last. It could 



l62 

no more be destroyed than the self-existent 
Reality, whose consciousness it is. The world- 
plan could not be changed without departing 
from the highest wisdom and purest love which 
God must possess in order to be the one Reality. 

There is the strongest reason, then, for taking 
life as it really is in this largest sense, since it 
must be part of the best possible world-plan in 
order to be a fact at all and be self-preserving. 
Everything that occurs in your life and mine 
must have some meaning in this world-plan, for 
nothing could come forth at random from an in- 
finite wisdom. There is no other reality, and 
we have no independent life. To let this one 
purpose have free expression through us, so far 
as it relates to our individual career, — this is 
life in its deepest and happiest sense, this is 
health and poise. 

But, before considering this final element in 
the problem of adjustment, let us ask, What is to 
be the ultimate outcome of life's aspiration? 
What is the real meaning and purpose behind all 
these mysterious experiences and trials? Is it 
not the development of a soul, and is it not 
for lack of spiritual self-possession that we are 
whiffed about by opinions and fears? What is a 
soul? One may as well try to define the larger 
Self, from whom, as we are persuaded, the soul's 
noblest aspirations come. Yet we know per- 



i63 

fectly well what we mean until we are asked to 
define it; and we have some conception of that 
eternal realm of thought, superior at once to 
space and to time, where the poets and philoso- 
phers dwell who speak words of comfort to the 
soul. Our own deepest reflection transports us 
there, and we seem larger as a result of our med- 
itation. There are experiences that call us out 
of and above ourselves, noticeably those that 
make one acquainted with grief in its larger 
sense; and the soul seems to expand with the 
new experience. We know when, on the one 
hand, a man's soul speaks through his words, 
and when, on the other, he says one thing with 
his lips and thinks another, thereby trying to 
conceal his soul. The whole being speaks 
through a perfectly genuine act, through truly 
ethical conduct. We mean something genuine, 
something honest, appealing, and true, bespeak- 
ing that indefinable thing called personality. 
It is a part of what we call character and temper- 
ament. It is that which endears one to those 
whose life gives us a glimpse of God, and makes 
one feel assured that life, if it produces such a 
thing as this, is well jvorth all its hardships. 
It is the test of all that is dearest and truest in 
human experience. It is that which transcends, 
yet gives unity to the physical, the intellectual 
and moral man. Through it comes that wisdom 



164 

which leads men to act better than they know, 
which bids one be calm when there is seem- 
ingly reason to fear and grieve, which assures 
one that all will be well even when reason opens 
the way to the profoundest doubts. It is the 
meeting-point of the eternal, never-changing 
Spirit with the ever-varying experiences of 
human life; and many feel confident that we are 
far enough on the eternal side, so that life will 
be continuous from this experience on, so that 
we can affirm personal immortality. 

Our deepest life, then, is a continuous incom- 
ing of renewing, sustaining power welling up 
from the heart of the universe into the spirit of 
man, a continuous, divine communication en- 
gaged in the rearing of a soul. The deepest self 
is not physical, nor even intellectual. It is 
spiritual. We are spirits now, in germ it may 
be; but, in so far as we are conscious of our life 
in God, that consciousness will probably never 
be broken. Man is not a body with a soul, but 
a soul or spirit, which in every well-poised per- 
son is master of the body and of the powers of 
thought. 

Now, if the soul stands uppermost in impor- 
tance, it is our first duty to keep the soul on top. 
Many people work so hard at their vocations that 
their souls have no room to expand. They are 
lawyers, doctors, financiers, with whom business 



i6 5 

stands first, not men in this spiritual sense of 
the word. Anything which subordinates the 
soul, and prevents man from taking all that be- 
longs to him as a free spirit in a beneficent 
world, any mistaken sense of humility or self- 
suppression, has a harmful effect on the whole 
life, and is evidently as far from a normal atti- 
tude as strong self-conceit. If one have con- 
tinued impulses to do good, and suppress them, 
a reaction is sure to follow. It is better to ex- 
press the impulse, even in a slight way, if one 
cannot realize one's deepest and fullest desire. 
Theological creeds often suppress the soul. 
One feels a desire to be larger, freer, and to 
think for one's self. Want of charity, continued 
fault-finding, the attempt to do a task that is 
beneath one, narrows the soul. Love, of the 
truer sort, broad thinking, open-heartedness, 
happiness, expands it, and has a marked effect 
on the health. Sacrifice of individuality to the 
control of a stronger mind suppresses the soul. 
Education often crushes out originality. 

Now, we were evidently designed to be free, to 
have strong, manly individuality. It is well, 
therefore, to consider wherein we are held down 
by people and circumstances, and to discover 
how we are cramping our souls. The soul 
should be master, and the powers of thought 
should be free. Do we not yield part of our 



1 66 

manhood or womanhood the moment we give way 
to worry, to continued grief or discouragement ? 
On the other hand, is not the realization of what 
we are as living, growing spirits, who use the 
body as an instrument, and control it by 
thought, who dwell with God and need never 
fear any permanent harm, — is not this the way to 
free ourselves most rapidly from all that would 
hold us down? We have all experienced those 
calmer moments when we quietly faced our 
fears, our doubts, and our wavering opinions, 
and as calmly dismissed them, henceforth power- 
less because we saw their utter absurdity. Half 
the battle is won when we see our error, and real- 
ize the possibilities of the soul. We are mo- 
mentarily masters of the situation. We are 
more truly and profoundly ourselves, we discover 
our inner centre, and become poised, grounded 
on eternal reason and calm in eternal peace. 
This is at once the highest use of the will and 
the truest spiritual self-possession; for it is in 
these moments of calm decision, when we real- 
ize our relationship to eternal power, that the 
mind changes, and brings all things round to 
correspond to our deep desire. The ideal of 
daily conduct is to maintain this inward repose, 
to keep it steadily and persistently in view, to 
regain it when we lose it, to seek it when we 
need help, to have a calm centre within which is 



i6 7 

never disturbed, come what may, — -a never-yield- 
ing citadel of the higher Self. 

It is evident, then, that the whole of human 
life, and all that we have considered in the fore- 
going chapters, may be restated with deeper 
meaning in terms of soul, or spiritual, experience. 
The soul must learn what it is and why it is 
here. It must gain this knowledge by actual 
experience, in order to learn the value of right 
conduct, in order to learn that there is a Wis- 
dom, a Love, that is equal to all occasions)/ It 
must descend into density, or matter, and become 
acquainted with darkness and sin, in order to dis- 
cover the meaning of life and become conscious 
of itself as an individualization of God. It 
struggles upward and forward to completion. It 
is ever trying to come forth and express itself; 
and, when man comes to consciousness of what 
it means to develop a soul, and of the divine 
trend in his personal life, he no longer resists 
this deep moving. He comes to judgment 
in his own soul, and sees how he might have 
acted more wisely. With this deeper conscious- 
ness comes readjustment to life and more soul 
freedom. His soul finds better expression 
through the body, not in some future existence 
or in another body, but here and now ; for even 
its experiences in the flesh are soul experiences, 



1 68 

and demand, not punishment in the flesh at some 
distant time, but better and truer conduct in the 
eternal now. 

If anything is purposeful in the universe, then 
it is the life, the aspiration and character, the 
soul of man, as it passes from stage to stage in 
its progressive experience, unfolding and giving 
to the light the divinity involved in its very 
being. It is the knowledge of this permanent 
factor in so much that is passing and trivial 
which gives one poise and strength to pass 
through any experience without fear that it may 
prove too hard. 

People disturb us. They narrate their 
troubles and describe their sensations with pain- 
ful minuteness of detail. Crowds, city rush 
and noise, deprive us of our peace. Be as watch- 
ful as we may, we find ourselves going off on a 
tangent, on a tirade of fear, or on a round of 
gloomy thoughts. We are misunderstood, ill- 
used, and wronged. Our faith is tested to the 
utmost, and we are pushed to the wall. There 
is obviously just one wise course to pursue in 
all such cases. Not to be disturbed, not to 
enter into the painful narration, not to rush 
with the crowd nor to countenance gloomy 
thoughts, not to feel uncharitable, revengeful, 
or unforgiving, since one will only add more 
trouble, but to regain one's poise by such 



i6 9 

thoughts and realizations of who we are as pro- 
gressive beings, and what the Power is that is 
with us, as the occasion may suggest. Find your 
centre, learn to know your home in God and 
what he is doing with you, and you can safely 
let the great world go on, and let nature's organ- 
ism right all wrongs and heal all hurts. 

I need hardly remind the reader that it is not 
so-called will power that invites this repose, but 
the higher and truer will explained in the fore- 
going chapter; for self-assertion plainly defeats 
one's object. People who are strong in them- 
selves alone obviously have no poise in this 
deeper sense, as a soul experience. Those who 
reach out after the ideal as though it were some- 
where afar off and not immanent in the real, who 
look forward to the future with a nervous strain 
instead of living in the present, where help is 
alone to be found, lose what little poise they 
have, and fly aloft on a burst of enthusiasm. 
The consciousness is concentrated wherever we 
send our thought; and, if we reach out or pray 
to God as a distant being, the thought is sent 
away from its proper sphere. It were better not 
to have ideals at all than to strain after them, 
and assert that they shall become facts at once; 
for nature's method of measured transformation 
through evolution is the only wise and health- 
giving course to pursue. 



170 

To know that everything we need is within, 
here and now, this is poise. Realization, not 
assertion, is the method of this book, — a real- 
ization which teaches through actual communion 
with it that there is an omnipresent Wisdom to 
which we can turn at any moment and in any 
place, of which our being partakes, and which is 
so near to us that we have no wisdom, no power, 
no life wholly our own. 

We are so accustomed to think of the divine 
nature as wholly unlike and separated from our 
own character that it is long ere we can make 
this realization a fact of daily consciousness. 
We have taken credit to ourselves for qualities 
which inhere in the very Essence itself. We 
have limited our worship of God to one day in 
the week, to one place of prayer, and sought his 
revelation in one book. Dogmas have crystal- 
lized about us, and we have hardly dared to think 
for ourselves. Yet a little reflection shows that 
we are, that we must be, partakers of an omni- 
present Love; that not the Bible alone nor any 
other sacred book, but every book through which 
the soul of its author speaks untrammelled, every 
divinest impulse, all that spurs man on to prog- 
ress, all that is most sacred, is a revelation of 
God, for he is not an exclusive, but an inclusive 
God. This being so, we obviously do not know 
ourselves, do not possess ourselves, and have no 



i;i 

permanent centre of repose, until we discover 
this inward kingdom of heaven. 

When we discover it, life seems just so much 
the larger and better worth the living. We 
learn that there is something within that will 
teach man better than any mere thought of his 
own, that he has a wellspring of guidance and 
inspiration in his own soul. It gives quietness 
and comfort to know this fact. Nearly every 
one has had such guidance at times, sudden 
warnings of approaching danger and impressions 
not to do this or that; and help has often come 
to us during sleep. But this realization of the 
nearness of All-knowledge gives a reason for 
such experiences, and encourages one to believe 
that they can be cultivated and relied on. 
Then, too, it gives one confidence and strength 
of a truer sort, not in self, self-consciousness, 
and the products of one's own intellectual devel- 
opment, but in that larger Self which is crowded 
out by all sentiments of pride and self-satisfac- 
tion. One loses fear, one ceases to worry about 
one's friends and to suffer for wrongs that one is 
powerless to prevent, when this realization be- 
comes a fixed habit of thought; for, if God, and 
not man, is behind events, we can safely trust 
the universe to him, and not only the universe, 
but our friends, our suffering and ignorant fel- 
low-beings, and our own souls. The sense of 



172 

officiousness is displaced by a feeling of patient 
trustfulness, and we spare ourselves a deal of 
unnecessary suffering; and I need hardly add 
that one not only gains greater repose, but that 
the health is immensely benefited, since the dis- 
ease-making directions of mind no longer have 
a chance at us. 

Education of the truer sort brings poise; for 
it develops individuality, health, and strength 
of intellect, which in turn means health and 
strength of body. Physical exercise, music, or 
any line of work which rounds out the character 
and acts as a balance wheel, is essential for the 
same reason, since it draws the activities out of 
narrow and therefore unhealthy directions of 
mind. Those who are very intense in disposi- 
tion often find it necessary to exercise vigorously, 
in order to counteract this extreme mental activ- 
ity, until by degrees they become less and less 
intense, and learn to work moderately and 
easily. There is an easiest, simplest way of 
doing everything, with the least degree of strain 
and nervous anxiety. We do not learn it while 
we hold ourselves with the grip of will-power, 
when we try to work our brains, and force the 
activities into a given channel. "Self-posses- 
sion forgets all about the body when it is using 
it." It interposes no obstacle to the physical 
and mental forces. It discovers the easiest 



173 

method of concentration through inward repose, 
and finds in this quiet restfulness the greatest 
protection from nervous reaction and fear. 

Poise, then, is a word of degrees. Many have 
it on the physical plane, and are apparently sel- 
dom disturbed in their physical life. Syste- 
matic physical exercise brings control of the 
muscles of the body, and with this control a cer- 
tain degree of poise. In learning to play a 
musical instrument, one gains it through long 
training; and we say of a great musician that he 
has repose, that he plays or sings without effort. 
But one may have bodily repose, yet have no 
repose of character, and may be the victim of 
a veritable whirlwind of nervous excitement 
within. Those who are aware of their own 
mental development and soul growth are usually 
conscious of touching a deeper and deeper 
centre, and with each experience comes added 
poise and readjustment to life. Every trying 
experience demands a strengthening of one's 
faith or a deepening of one's self-possession; for 
the natural tendency is to fear, worry, and 
doubt. We are not sure of ourselves until we 
have met and undergone the test of a se- 
vere experience. Any experience, then, that 
strengthens this inward repose is rather a bless- 
ing than a hardship. Is it too much to say that 
we can become equal to any experience whatever, 



174 

and meet it unmoved within, in quiet trust and 
perfect faith? Surely, the possibility is worthy 
of our consideration. 

If we have proved to our satisfaction that two 
and two make four, and that the result will 
always be the same, we are undisturbed by those 
who affirm that the result should be five. So far 
as we have rationalized experience and discov- 
ered certain laws, our conviction is no less cer- 
tain, because nature, like mathematics, is a 
system on which we can rely. If the reader is 
convinced that God is immanent, or that evolu- 
tion, so far as science has described it, is a true 
statement of life's process of becoming, this 
knowledge furnishes a basis on which to reason. 
It gives poise and inspires trust. To be sure, 
the conditions may change, and other forces enter 
in to counteract and modify the results in a 
given case. To the forgetfulness of this fact is 
due the tenacity with which some people cling 
to their beliefs, simply because they are unaware 
of these modifying circumstances and causes. 
Doctors seem justified in affirming that disease 
is a physical thing, that organic and chronic dis- 
eases cannot be cured by mental means, because 
as a class they are unaware of the deeper aspects 
both of the cause and the cure of disease. But 
the exceptions only go to strengthen our faith, 
since every effect is like its cause, unless a new 



175 

element be introduced. Then it is invariably 
different. The laws hold true universally; and, 
if the reader has grasped the few great but 
highly important laws of human life, he can now 
rise superior to moods and experiences, troubles 
and illness, which once would have caused fear, 
doubt, and a great amount of unnecessary suffer- 
ing. Simply to know that every event has an 
adequate cause, that action and reaction are 
equal, that experience depends on our attitude 
towards it, and that with a change of mind, a 
new directing of the will, the forces of our being 
are brought round to correspond with it, — with- 
out any further effort on our part, — this simple 
knowledge is enough to give us poise, and make 
us masters of our fate. 

One's method of adjustment to life or one's 
optimism need not necessarily be the philosophy 
of this book. There are as many approaches to 
it as there are temperaments, and this is just the 
point of this chapter. ••'' Have a method. Have a 
soul of your own. Be your true self. Think, 
realize, reflect, until you have a measure of un- 
borrowed conviction, which establishes a centre 
of repose, and is a source of happiness and con- 
tentment, — a centre which yields to no outer 
tumult, but is ever receptive to the divine Self; 
which never harbors fear or doubt, no matter 
what the wavering self may say; which never 



1 7 6 

wavers, never forgets that the individual belongs 
to the Universal, never relaxes its hold of the 
deepest, the truest, the most spiritual in life, 
come what may, be it sorrow, illness, or any 
calamity which life may bring; a centre which 
you will probably discover at last rests on the 
love of God for its strength, making it part of 
eternity and of all power and substance, though 
it be but a point in the infinite whole. And, 
when you lose this poise, regain it, as though 
you would say, "Sit still, my soul: thou at least 
must not lose thy composure nor thy awareness 
of the eternal presence of God." 

Those who are nervously inclined will find it 
necessary to stop themselves many times a day 
when they discover that they are under too great 
pressure. They will find themselves hurrying 
unnecessarily or inwardly excited. Oftentimes 
all that is needed in order to prevent serious 
mental and physical trouble is to take off this 
pressure, and find this quiet inward centre. It 
is wonderfully refreshing and removes fatigue to 
relieve the pressure and open the spirit to the 
healing power. Simply to turn away from self, 
and all that destroys repose, to the Self which 
knows nothing but peace, is sufficient to give 
one help and strength at any time and in any 
place. The wise direction of mind opens the 
door to help. If we trust, if we expect it, the 



177 

help will come, whereas the effort to make it 
come will put an obstacle in its pathway. 

To know how to rest, this is the great need of 
our hurrying age. We are too intense, too ac- 
tive. We have not yet learned the power and 
supremacy of the Spirit, nor the value of quiet, 
systematic thinking. We struggle after ideas. 
We read this book and that, and go about from 
place to place in search of the latest and most 
popular lecturer, instead of pausing to make our 
own the few great but profoundly simple laws 
and truths of the Spirit. We are unaware of the 
power and value of a few moments of silence. 
Yet it is in our periods of receptivity that we 
grow. Not while we actively pursue our ideas 
do we get the greatest light. Oftentimes, if 
the way be dark, and we can get no help, it is 
better to cease all striving, and let the thoughts 
come as they may, let the Power have us; for 
there is a divine tendency in events, a tendency 
in our lives which we can fall back on, which 
will guide us better than we know, if we listen, 
laying aside all intensity of thought, and letting 
the activities settle down to a quieter basis. 
Here is the vital thought of this book, its most 
urgent appeal to suffering humanity and the soul 
in need. Part of its teaching can only be veri- 
fied by experience, and must seem merely theo- 



i 7 8 

retical to many readers. But here is a thought 
that is for every one, a simple, practical thought, 
that leads to and includes all the rest. Let us 
pause for a time, think slowly and quietly, and 
not leave it until we have made it our own. 

Silence invites the greatest power in the 
world, the one Power, the one Life. Let us be 
still in the truest and deepest sense of the word, 
and feel that Power. It is the All in all. It 
knows no space. It knows no time. Its slight- 
est activity is universal and eternal. It sur- 
rounds us here and now, in this present life, 
this beautiful world of nature, of law and order, 
this inner world of thought and the soul. It is 
the supreme wisdom and perfect love. It knows 
no opposition. There is naught to disturb its 
harmonious, measured, and peaceful activity. It 
is beauty and peace itself. Its love and peace 
are present here with us. Let us then be still. 
Peace, peace, there is nothing to fear. In this 
one restful happy moment we have won the 
peace of eternity, and it is ours forever. 

Who that has communed with the Power of 
silence in this way can do justice to the unspeak- 
able joy of that one moment of rest and peace? 
It is not a thought alone or a suggestion that 
brings it. It is something more than so-called 
thought. It is inner stillness. It is the recep- 
tivity of the soul. It opens one to the thing 






179 

itself, the eternal Peace. Many will find it 
difficult at first to banish other thoughts; and it 
is better not to force the stillness to come, but 
to let the agitation cease by degrees, letting the 
thoughts come until x they quiet down for mere 
want of conscious attention. When at last the 
thought no longer wanders here and there, but is 
poised in the present moment, and the feeling of 
peace becomes uppermost, it is better to cease 
definite thought altogether, and simply enjoy the 
silence. One will then have a sense of incom- 
ing power and of newness of life which no other 
experience can bring. This may not be the 
result at first, because it is only after repeated 
trials that one learns how to become still. One 
may even be made more nervous by the simple 
thought of stillness. It is often easier to real- 
ize this peace for another than for one's self, but 
the result will in time be the same. The con- 
sciousness will be drawn away from self and 
physical sensation; and this, after all, is the 
one essential, to rise above self into the nobler 
world of altruism and the Spirit. 

Some have found it helpful to set aside fifteen 
minutes each day for quiet receptivity of this 
deeper sort. Then, when times of trouble and 
suffering come, one will not lose one's self-pos- 
session, but will know how and where to find 
help. 



V 




i8o 

The instance is related of a student in the 
university of Leipzig who was in such an intense 
state of nervous strain that the students and pro- 
fessors were much alarmed at his condition. By 
some good advice he took up the habit of sitting 
quietly by himself for about fifteen minutes each 
day, in absolute silence, maintaining as nearly 
as possible a state of perfect composure and 
muscular rest, banishing all thought and all 
activity. In a short time he made a very no- 
ticeable improvement, and finally recovered his 
health. The mere effort of maintaining an easy, 
relaxed state of mind and body had relieved him 
of the inward pressure. He had unconsciously 
realized the power of silence, and it had healed 
him. 

If one fails utterly at first to gain this silent 
repose, and becomes still more restless, one 
should hot feel discouraged. That is just the 
moment to rejoice and to know that one has suc- 
ceeded. The experience is the same in all 
efforts of reform. The first result is to stir up 
and encounter opposition. 

Suppose for a moment that the reader is impa- 
tient, and, seeing the error of his ways, decides 
to exercise self-control. Very likely he will 
lose his patience on the very first occasion, and 
act or speak impulsively. Discouragement natu- 
rally follows ; and the reader forgets one of the 



great laws of growth, — the law, namely, that a 
period of darkness, of regeneration, of sharp 
contact with all that can rouse itself into oppo- 
sition, follows the reception of new light, of 
greater power. Conservatism and habit are ever 
ready to rise up, and say that there shall be no 
reform. All healthy changes are evolutionary, 
not revolutionary. We forget that an idea, like 
a seed, has life, and, if sown in the mind, will 
grow. We forget the outcome. We often 
falsely accuse ourselves of sin, when the relapse 
is really due to a firm determination to be bet- 
ter. If we keep the end in view, if we have an 
ideal outlook, we can safely let the disturbance 
be what it may. Quiet persistence is the word. 
Each effort to renew our ideal adds to its 
evolutionary power. "Keep your eye fixed on 
the eternal, and your intellect will grow," says 
Emerson. , 

One's first real success in attaining this inner 
repose sometimes comes alone with nature when, 
standing in silence under the pines and thinking 
in harmony with their whispering or awed by 
some grand mountain scene, one freely and fully 
yields to the spirit, the calm, the rhythm of 
one's surroundings. Afterwards one can return 
in thought to the mountain summit, where the 
eternal silence of the upper air was so deeply 
impressive. Or one can imagine one's self by 



1 82 

the sea, where the ceaseless ebb and flow of the 
surf on a sandy shore once quieted the troubled 
spirit, or afloat at sea on a beautiful June day, 
listening to the regular play of the waves along 
the steamer's side. Any thought which sug- 
gests silence will produce the result, until one 
gets in the habit of thinking in harmony with 
the rhythm of nature, just as one can learn to 
rise and fall with the motion of a steamer as it 
responds to the steady waving of the ocean. 

Everything in nature seems to have its ebb 
and flow, its alternation of day and night, of 
activity and rest, the one blending into the other 
throughout the seasons and the centuries. The 
strains of a grand symphony carry one in thought 
to this region of rhythmic alternation. One is 
glad enough at times to lay aside present prob- 
lems and everything that is modern, and read 
the great authors who wrote for all time, or read 
some history or scientific work which transports 
one to the past, and gives one a sense of time, 
of the long ages and the periods through which 
the earth has passed and man has worked his way. 

There seems to be a corresponding rhythm in 
human life, with its ups and downs, its joys and 
sorrows, its successes and its failures. Yet the 
interval is often too long for our short-sighted 
discernment. In the night of trouble and de- 
spair we forget that the day will surely dawn 



i»3 

again. We occasionally emerge into remem- 
brance of what it all means, and we think that 
now at last all will go well. Then comes the 
descent. We are plunged once more into the 
depths, where the facts of life are seen at 
the close, pessimistic range; and once more our 
memory fails to hold over. But in due time 
these contrasted experiences fall into a system, 
if we reflect on their meaning. We are awed by 
the eternal fitness of things. A stronger hand 
and a profounder will than our own is revealed 
in the fabric of our soul, which no purely human 
effort could have knit together. We are almost 
ready to affirm that whatever is is right. 

It is true we make many apparent mistakes. 
Within certain limits we seem to have an infi- 
nite choice. We are conscious of wrong-doing. 
We deliberately sin sometimes, and we have 
much to regret. Yet a time comes when many 
of these experiences yield up their meaning. 
We justify mistakes in the light of their out- 
come. Each hour of conflict had its place in 
teaching part of life's great lesson. A world 
of truth flashes upon us through the memory of 
some wrong act; and we question the wisdom of 
the slightest regret, since we have acted so much 
better than we knew. This soul-experience, 
this personal evidence that we have been guided, 
is for many the strongest assurance that our 



1 84 

world-order is the best possible order. They 
are conscious of being led to certain lines of 
conduct at the right moment. They see their 
humble place in the world, and await the next 
step in quiet expectancy. One may as well tell 
them they have no eyes as to deny this inward 
guidance, for it leads them from task to task 
with a certain system. If it does not tell them 
what to do, it at least opposes no obstacle, like 
the famous daemon of Socrates. It either speaks 
definitely or it opens the way to the soul in re- 
pose, not the soul that thinks it knows how to 
act, and gives the deeper Self no room to speak. 
One cannot hasten it. One cannot always dis- 
cern the proper course until the proper moment. 
It often comes unexpectedly, causing humility 
and surprise that so much should be given us. 
But the right thought comes in the fitness of 
time to those who quietly await it. 

Thus one is drawn at last out of the narrow 
prison of one's own self-consciousness and physi- 
cal sensation into this larger thought of the 
whole. It gives rest and trust to feel one's self 
part of a fabric so wonderfully and systemati- 
cally woven, where the world-plan is not alone 
concerned with the selfish needs of one man, 
nor the wrongs which one would like to see 
swept away because we do not see their meaning, 



185 

but with the total needs of all as related to the 
total universe. 

One loses all sense of time and space under 
the power of this grand thought of the transcen- 
dent wholeness which shades off into eternity. 
This transient thought of ours, this divine mo- 
ment of time, is a part of that eternity. It 
links the limitless future with the irrevocable 
past. It is just as important, just as truly a part 
of eternity, as any moment could ever be. We 
learn that we are in eternity now, not that it 
is something to come. We try to comprehend 
what it means, in eternity now, in infinite time, 
in boundless space, or, better, above all time 
and space, where one Power, one law, holds all 
events together, where each and all are insepa- 
rable and necessary parts of the one Reality. 

If we dwell in eternity, why need we hurry in 
soul, whatever bodily hurry may be required? 
Why should we not dwell here in the everlast- 
ing now, instead of reaching off somewhere in 
thought, anticipating the future and death, as 
though there would ever be a break in the stream 
of life? If we, as souls, dwell, in eternity, is 
not our life continuous? It surely cannot die if 
it enlarges into the infinite, eternal life, else it 
would not be life, but mere physical change. 
Even in physical disintegration there is no an- 
nihilation, not even the minutest particle is ever 



1 86 

lost. Can we believe anything less of the soul? 
Must we not believe more; namely, that the 
aspiring consciousness and sense of individual- 
ity remain unbroken? If the great Father has 
a purpose with us, however infinitesimal as ap- 
plied to you and me, it must be a part of his in- 
finite life; and there is nothing to break its con- 
tinuity. 

In some of us has been born a desire to live 
forever. It is probable that we are no more re- 
sponsible for that desire than for our deepest 
faith in God. In the supremest moments of 
human life it is he who stands by us, not we by 
our faith in him, and we would fain doubt him 
if we could; but we never quite persuade our- 
selves that he will fail to fulfil every deepest 
desire and justify all the conditions in which we 
have been placed, though it take forever. There 
are times when we seem to dwell in a region 
where all is good and wise and true; for we have 
momentary glimpses of the sublime wholeness of 
things, the sublime reason, the sublime end,, a 
region where, if we have not all power, we at 
least have as much as we can make our own, and 
a faith that knows no doubt. Yet it is no credit 
to us that we have this faith, this belief in God. 
We did not originate it. 

If I display goodness towards another, I par- 
take of the nature of God in some degree. The 



i8 7 

love of God speaks through the heart of the 
mother. It must be a part of the infinite love, 
since we all belong to him; and, if we had any 
power wholly independent of him, all men, all 
things, would be independent of him. There 
would be no fundamental unity, no omnipresent, 
inclusive Reality, no universe as we know it. 
The life, the power, the goodness, the love, the 
groundwork of the universe, of men, and of the 
soul, must be the all-inclusive Self; and human 
nature, however individual in its history, must 
be at each moment in some measure dependent 
on the Universal. One's soul is not one's self 
alone. It is also God's emphasis of some 
phase of his own nature, the attention of God 
fixed on some object. One's unquenchable faith 
is ultimately God's unfailing love. We believe 
in him because he knows us, because he pos- 
sesses us, you and me, and uses, has need of us, 
because he has made us aware of his presence. 
He loves us, and we trust him because we must. 
He has aroused interest in our minds in the 
deepest problems of life, — problems which it 
will take eternity to solve; and, if we long to 
solve them, we may thus know that we are so 
far immortal, because this interest is funda- 
mentally the eternal purpose of God. 

This realization of our oneness with the un- 



i88 

thinkably great and eternal, which brings us just 
as near to it and makes us just as much part of 
it here and now in this present moment as 
though we were this great wholeness, and had 
lived from all time, is strengthened by consider- 
ing our indebtedness to the world. Here we are 
in this beautiful, beautiful world. How won- 
derfully it is wrought! How systematically it 
has evolved, governed by exact laws and ani- 
mated by unvarying forces ! It is our own home. 
We can rely upon it and on that heaven-taught 
instinct which guides its creatures better than 
the combined wisdom of all mankind. What 
a delight to exist! What exceptional pleasures 
come to us at times among the mountains, by 
the winding streams, the peaceful valleys, the 
great ocean, inspiring awe alike in storm and 
calm, and ever suggestive of that Whole which 
unites us all! Days are continually recurring 
which stand out above many others because of 
some charming scene in nature, some impressive 
communion with the spirit of the woods or the 
hills, while the dreariest day in winter or the 
most barren landscape in nature will yield its 
gift of beauty if we seek it. The poet and the 
artist see all this, and live in a diviner world 
because they are watchful. But the beauty is 
there for us all, to inspire contentment if we 
need it, to reveal the good if we look for it, and 



1 89 

do not let the habit of narrating and seeking 
only the bad control us, and to make us thankful 
and trustful when we consider its deep signifi- 
cance, its correspondence to the beauty of law 
and order, of need and supply in the inner life. 

Then, too, the beauty of human character 
more than all else endears one to life, and gives 
one joy in existence. Two or three noble 
friends are all the world to some people. Where 
they are is home, and where they are is always 
happiness and contentment. One is constantly 
being touched by little acts of kindness and de- 
votion. Sometimes in the country, even among 
a simple folk, one draws very near to the heart 
of humanity. One is moved beyond words, for 
nothing conceals the honest hearts that reach 
out to one in all their native feeling and sincer- 
ity. Such experiences have a wonderful effect 
upon the recipient when put beside the darker 
aspects of life, — with those undeniable evi- 
dences of wickedness which might otherwise al- 
most persuade one that human life is corrupt to 
the core. 

Omit these darker experiences we cannot in 
trying to cast our thought into some sort of sys- 
tem ;/but in daily life we are too inclined to 
dwell on them, especially to enlarge upon our 
own woes, to describe every detail, so that as a 
result our friends form harmful mental pictures 



190 

of them. We are apt to contemplate these 
darker facts, and never get beyond them. We 
stay in gloomy surroundings, and then call the 
world ugly. It is well once in a while to pass 
in review all that should cause us joy and thank- 
fulness, to ascend the mountain, whence we can 
look beyond the ugly spots and see their re- 
lation — and, after all, it is a beautiful one — 
to the great landscape beyond. x 

f I do not speak alone as one who has stood on 
the mountain top, and thought the world beauti- 

/ ful, bat as one who has suffered keenly and crit- 
ically in the darksome vales below, who has met 

I with the severest losses and suffered the deepest 1 
disappointments, and has had a most intense 

* nature to overcome. Our poise is worth little if I 

/ it fail to give strength and composure in any J 
possible experience, and to be itself strengthened 

/ by the newest trial. The experiences and real- 
izations suggested in this chapter prepare the 
way for the severer tests of actual life. If we 
habitually realize what it means to dwell with 
God, what the soul is, and how it is approaching 
completion, and keep the ideal of adjustment to 
life ever before us, pausing in silent receptivity 
whenever we become too intense, into the 
thought will steal the renewing and strengthen- 
ing Power, which will prepare us for the day of 
sorrow and the hour of supreme suffering. 



VIII. 

SELF-HELP. 

We have now considered the general attitude 
toward life whereby the vital truths of the Spirit 
may become concrete in daily experience. We 
have found that attitude to consist in the recog- 
nition of what man is as a progressive being, and 
in wise co-operation with the indwelling Life 
which resistlessly carries him forward to comple- 
tion. / There is a tendency, a guidance, in the 
soul of man which will lead him onward if he 
will listen for it./ It will guide him in every 
detail of life, it will help him in every moment 
of trouble. It is with all men, it is used by all 
men ; for otherwise they could not exist. But 
to the majority it is unknown and unrecognized, 
simply because they use it unconsciously; and to 
assure them that they can have such guidance 
seems to them the merest folly. To know it, 
and to distinguish between the merely personal 
thought or inclination and this diviner moving, 
is to live the higher life, — a life which seems 
infinitely better and happier the moment one 
learns to make this most helpful discrimination. 
To turn to it in times of doubt and trouble is to 



192 

regain one's poise, to become adjusted to life, to 
gain the truest self-help. 

Ordinarily, it is sufficient to hold this possi- 
bility in mind, and to maintain an ever-deepen- 
ing consciousness of our life with the infinite 
Father. Contaminating influences cannot then 
touch us, fear will have no power over us, we 
shall respect this inner voice rather than the 
opinions of men, and escape a large proportion of 
the ills which neither the mind nor the flesh is 
heir to. | This realization will add a meaning, 
a depth and beauty to life, which the reader who 
has not yet made it a factor in daily experience 
can hardly imagine. Simply to discover that so 
much depends on our mental attitude is of itself 
sufficient knowledge to work a wonderful change 
in the lives of those who ever bear this vital 
truth in mind; for, if we begin life afresh, with 
a determination to see only the good, the real 
meaning and spirit of things, it will be impossi- 
ble for our old habits of thought, our fears and 
inherited notions about disease, to win their way 
into consciousness. The road to better health, 
to unhoped-for happiness and freedom, is open 
before us. The better health shall be ours if we 
have the will, for nothing can resist the power 
of thought : the body, our fixed directions of 
mind, and even our temperaments will yield 
when we learn how to use this marvellous power. 



193 

But there are experiences when we need some- 
thing more than this general knowledge of how 
to take the deepest life just as it is; and, in 
order to make the application of the foregoing 
principles perfectly clear, so that the reader will 
not only know what to do in times of trouble and 
suffering, but how to help a fellow-sufferer, let 
us once more consider the actual process of 
change in mind and body. 

In considering the qualities and composition 
of matter in Chapter III., we learned that the 
phenomenon of expansion and contraction is one 
of its most noticeable characteristics. Turning 
to the mental world, we found the same principle 
repeated; namely, that thoughts are harmful or 
healthful to the degree that they expand and con- 
tract the inner being. Fear, jealousy, anger, 
and all selfish or belittling emotions have a ten- 
dency to draw one into self, to shut in and re- 
strict the activities, impeding the natural life 
and restorative power of the body, and develop- 
ing a condition from which, if it be long main- 
tained, nature can only free us by a violent reac- 
tion : whereas a pleasurable emotion, such as one 
feels when listening to a familiar melody or the 
strains of a great symphony, causes the whole 
individual to expand, and sends a thrill to the 
utmost extremities of the being. 



194 

There is a whole vocabulary of words in com- 
mon use expressing the warmth and coldness of 
human beings. In fact, the two faculties of in- 
tellect and emotion, or head and heart, are often 
taken as types of these fundamental characteris- 
tics; and we speak of this church as cold and 
intellectual, that one as warm and spiritual, — so 
hard it is for one to combine the two. 

Again, considering emotion alone, we speak of 
warm-heartedness. It seems to be out-going, 
expansive; and, if one give to another or do some 
act of kindness, that act has a tendency to repeat 
itself. The person is touched on whom the favor 
is conferred, and immediately feels a desire to 
reciprocate, or to show kindness to another. On 
the contrary, let the emotion be selfish, let the 
person decide to do a mean act, and there is an 
instant withdrawing, a self -contract ion and nar- 
rowing of the soul. Happiness, joy, genuine 
pleasure, and self-denial are expansive emotions, 
and oftentimes wonderfully catching. With the 
one emotion comes self-forgetfulness and lack of 
restraint : with the other comes self-conscious- 
ness and painful awareness of sensation. Love 
is warm : selfishness is cold. Happiness ex- 
pands : fear contracts. 

Thus we might pass in review the whole cate- 
gory of human emotions ; and, if we could trace 
their physical effect on the minuter portions of 



195 

the body, we should probably discover thit the 
molecules are either drawn together or thrown 
apart by each emotion. When the shock is too 
great, whether the emotion be one of joy or 
sorrow, death results. There is evidently, then, 
a state of equilibrium where, on the one side, the 
body is harmoniously open and free from restric- 
tions, and where, on the other, the mind is also 
open or in repose. 

This emotional effect, with its accompanying 
physical changes, may be further illustrated by 
the sudden and marvellous cures which have 
taken place in all ages, and are occurring to-day. 
It is a well-known fact that these wonderful 
cures usually occur either among people of strong 
faith or among ignorant and superstitious — in 
other words, highly emotional — people. The 
alleged cures performed through the agency of 
sacred relics, at holy shrines, at Lourdes, and 
other well-known wonder-working centres, are 
wrought almost wholly among strongly supersti- 
tious people, who are ready to accept certain be- 
liefs with all the energy of their being. 

It is a truism to-day to affirm that miracles are 
impossible. The whole fabric of nineteenth- 
century science rests on the knowledge that law 
is universal. If, then, such cures occur, — and 
they are too widely attested to doubt them, — 
they must take place in accordance with a certain 



196 

principle. This principle is evidently the one 
already suggested; namely, that the bodily con- 
dition changes when the emotions are touched, — 
not only in sudden cures, but in all that consti- 
tutes the emotional life. And the reason is 
found in the existence of the subtle intermediary 
known as spiritual matter, which immediately 
responds to the slightest change of feeling, and 
translates it into the bodily condition. 

The stronger the emotion, other things being 
equal, the more remarkable the effect or cure. 
Emotion of a certain sort — noticeably, expectant 
attention accompanied by implicit faith on the 
part of an invalid before a sacred relic — has a 
wonderfully expansive and liberating effect on 
the body. The whole thought is concentrated on 
what is about to occur; the individual is lifted 
above self by the emotional experience; and the 
physical forces are no longer hampered by fear, 
morbid awareness of sensation, and the thousand 
and one feelings which interfere with the natural 
restorative power of the body. The emotion 
frees, opens the body, so that the interpenetrat- 
ing forces may once more circulate between the 
particles. Density is broken up. An expansion 
takes place; and a process of change which 
usually occupies many weeks or months is com- 
pleted in a short time, resulting in the cure of 
many so-called incurable diseases. 



197 

Here, then, is an important fact underlying 
the entire process of cure and self-help : a change 
for the better results when the emotions are 
touched, when some thought or feeling penetrates 
to the centre, freeing the soul, and causing an 
expansion of the whole being. Something must 
quicken the activities and rouse the individual to 
new life. Bed-ridden invalids and lame peo- 
ple have been known to rush out of burning 
buildings, or forget themselves in their eagerness 
to rescue a person in danger, completely recover- 
ing their health through the sudden change of 
mind. In other cases, where the patient is self- 
ish in disposition, the chief task is to find some 
way in which the person shall begin to live for 
other people, some interest which shall take the 
thought out of self, and thereby open the person 
to the healing power. Whatever be the method 
employed, — the use of physical remedies, prayer, 
foreign travel, — anything that arouses the confi- 
dence, the affection, the interest, or even the 
credulity of the sufferer, will produce the same 
result. On the other hand, any remedial means 
which fails to move or touch the soul is of little 
efficacy in effecting a cure. The problem, then, 
is to discover the method whereby the individual 
shall most quickly and easily be touched, so that 
the healing power shall have full and immediate 
access to the troubled soul. 



198 

But what causes the emotional change ? Why 
is it that so many people who receive no benefit 
from medicine are cured by forgetting self and 
becoming absorbed in some benevolent work? 
If ignorant and superstitious people can be cured 
quickly because they are credulous, if cures of 
all kinds and among all classes largely depend on 
the faith or confidence put into the remedial 
means, is there not some deeper law which gov- 
erns all cases, by the discovery of which the 
intelligent can be cured as quickly as the super- 
stitious? 

There can be but one answer to these ques- 
tions. It is the thought, the mental attitude, 
the direction of mind, which governs the whole 
process. Before the sudden cure can result, 
there must be faith, expectant attention; and, if 
the person have implicit faith, the whole indi- 
vidual is governed by this one powerful direction 
of mind. The emotional experience uncon- 
sciously opens the soul to the Life or Spirit, 
which, like heat, enters into and expands the 
whole being, just as the warm sunlight penetrates 
the very fibre of the plant. It is the Spirit that 
performs the cure, not the personal thought or 
faith. The human part consists in becoming re- 
ceptive, in withdrawing the consciousness from 
self and physical sensation, and becoming ab- 
sorbed in the expected cure. The personal self, 



the fears and wrong thoughts, have stood in the 
way, and barred the door where the Spirit sought 
to enter. The new direction of thought changes 
all this, and makes way for the Spirit. It is a 
redirecting of the will ; and in the wise use of 
the will, as we have seen, lies the greatest human 
power, while its misuse is the most potent cause 
of trouble. 

Of all known forms of the one energy, then, 
thought is the most powerful, the most subtle, 
and, probably, the least understood. Used igno- 
rantly, it brings us all our misery; used wisely, 
its power of developing health and happiness is 
limitless. It is essential to a just understanding 
of it, and to the knowledge of how to help one's 
self, that the reader bear in mind the central 
thought of each of the foregoing chapters. For 
we have learned that all power acts through 
something; and, in order to understand how 
the realization of the Spirit can break up an or- 
ganic or chronic physical disease, so called, one 
must remember how such a disease is built up, 
and what the power behind thought really is. 

We have seen that the inherited beliefs, the 
borrowed opinions and fears, the troublesome 
mental pictures, the description of symptoms 
made by doctors, and the whole thought process 
whereby a disease is made out of a disturbance 
which nature would have cured, had she been 



200 

permitted, is impressed upon the spiritual matter, 
and then reflected in the body. All this must be 
changed — the mental attitude, the spiritual 
matter, and the physical body — by another and 
more powerful direction of mind, not of the per- 
sonal self alone, but a realization which, con- 
sciously and intelligently, opens the individual 
to the healing power, to the same Power on 
a higher plane, which unconsciously heals the 
ignorant enthusiast at the shrine, but leaves him 
no wiser, because he has no understanding of it. 

To many people it seems impossible that 
a person in a quiet attitude of mind can wield 
such power as this, and actually penetrate with 
the power of the Spirit to the very core of a dis- 
eased state and break it up, overcoming density 
and contraction in the muscles and tissues of the 
body which no physical remedies can affect. Yet 
this has been done repeatedly, and done, too, by 
those who knew precisely what they were doing 
and how they did it. The right use of this 
quiet, penetrating thought is a science, and every 
detail of this present analysis of the healing 
process is based on actual experience in perform- 
ing just such cures. 

The whole matter is simplified by remember- 
ing that the body is composed of minute parti- 
cles, which may be driven farther apart by the 
attenuated substance which forms the connecting- 



201 

link between thought and the physical state. 
Matter is not an inert mass : it is imbued with 
Life; and thought can penetrate to that resident 
Life, and become consciously connected with it. 
The power used by thought is greater than the 
power which binds the particles together; for it 
is the Spirit, and it can become the master, and 
is, in fact, constantly used by man in a masterful 
way, with scarcely a suspicion of the wonderful 
power he is wielding. 

i. The first fact to note, then, is that the 
power of self-help is with us, like the air we 
breathe, awaiting our openness to it. In the 
moments of calm decision before referred to, 
when we master our fears or decide upon this 
better conduct in preference to that sinful act, 
we do not have to fix the decision in mind, and 
say, "This shall be so." The decision itself is 
an act of will, like the desire to move the arm, and 
is put into effect unconsciously to us. In the 
same way the ideal of adjustment to life, and the 
daily effort to gain one's poise, is effective in 
proportion to the clearness and strength of our 
thought and the confidence we put into it. The 
first essential is a healthier and wiser habit of 
thought, for the ideas that we have inherited and 
grown up with are narrow and cramping to the 
soul. It is our personal duty to have the right 
thought : our own organism will see that it is 



202 

executed. We do not need to fight the wrong 
thoughts, nor argue them away. It is enough for 
man to sow the new seed : nature will attend to 
its growth. 

If the reader has carried out the suggestions 
of Chapter I., and tried to actualize these vital 
truths in daily life, or to realize the power of 
silent receptivity, it must already be clear that 
this is the most direct method of touching the 
inner centre. For, with the realization of the 
near presence of the immanent Spirit comes the 
conviction that it is competent, more competent 
than we, to minister to our truest and deepest 
need. A quieting influence, a sense of power 
and restfulness, steals upon us, removing all fear 
and doubt. The mere effort to become inwardly 
still is sufficient to awaken this sense of power, 
as though one were for the moment a magnetic 
centre toward which radiate streams of energy. 
And, if the reader has sought this silence in 
order to get relief from pain or some other un- 
comfortable sensation, there was doubtless a 
consciousness of pressure or activity in some part 
of the being, as though the resident power were 
trying to restore equilibrium. To unite in 
thought with this quickening power is, in gen- 
eral terms, the first step in the process of self- 
help by the silent method. 

There is, obviously, no general rule which 



203 

should govern the thought process, because no 
two troubles and no two individuals are wholly 
alike. Sometimes one needs mental rousing; 
and the thought should be clear, strong, and de- 
cisive. Again, there should be little active 
thought ; and, on general principles, the central 
thought of this volume — the power of silence — 
is at once the quickest and surest means of self- 
help. It is this power, and the attitude which 
invites it, which one should be conscious of, — 
not of the pain, the fatigue, or the depression 
from which one wishes to be free. This power 
or Spirit is shut out during trouble : there is 
resistance to it, and contraction in some part of 
the body. In order to overcome this resistance, 
one should open out inwardly, try to find the in- 
ward centre where the power is pressing through, 
or the centre of repose described in the foregoing 
chapter ; and simply to search for it, and to rely 
upon this quickening power, is sufficient not only 
to draw the thought away from physical sensa- 
tion, but to be immensely refreshed by the re- 
newing presence. For, through this experience 
of receptivity — it is an experience rather than 
a process of thought — one becomes connected 
with a boundless reservoir of life and healing 
power. The healing process is, in fact, one 
form of receiving life. We do not originate life. 
We use it, we are animated by it ; for it already 



2C4 

exists. Our individual life is a sharing of uni- 
versal life. We possess it by living it ; and to 
partake of it is the commonest yet the highest 
privilege of man. 

In order to make this experience vivid and 
clear, let us compare the soul to the budding life 
which is trying to open its petals and expand 
into a beautiful flower. The soul has been 
through a round of experiences in ignorance of 
their meaning. It has come into rude contact 
with the world, and has sought to withdraw from 
the world's wickedness and misery. In thus 
withdrawing, it has shut into a narrow space the 
mental pictures and remembrances of the experi- 
ences that were repulsive to it. It has narrowed 
and cramped itself into this prison of its own 
selfhood, unaware that it was thereby shutting in 
experiences which must some time be opened out. 

In the mean time the resident life, active in 
the soul, as in the bud, is trying to expand it, 
and to open it out into the sunlight of truth. 
This activity, being misunderstood, causes fear; 
and the soul, in ignorance, withdraws still more, 
cramping itself this time with the sanction of 
medical opinion. 

Now, the thought of the one who understands 
this inner process penetrates to the centre where 
the imprisoned soul is trying to come forth, and 



205 

gradually sets it free. For it is the nature of 
these deep realizations of the Spirit to cause 
expansion, to touch the soul ; and the accompa- 
nying power is equal to overcoming any obstruc- 
tion in its pathway. The expanding process may 
not always be pleasant, and oftentimes one feels 
restless and impatient to have it completed. It 
may require long and trustfully persistent effort 
to overcome a condition of long standing, for 
people do not easily yield their opinions and 
beliefs. At times it is only necessary to open 
one's self in silence for a few moments in order 
to take off the pressure and become wonderfully 
refreshed. Again, one has to try all methods, — 
to read a comforting book; to think of some 
friend, or a person in distress to whom one would 
like to be of service; to rouse one's self with 
a firm determination to rise above this trouble- 
some difficulty, to push through it with a persist- 
ently positive thought, or do anything which 
shall quiet the inner centre and take one out of 
self. 

But in all cases one should approach this expe- 
rience with a quiet confidence that the resident 
power is fully equal to the occasion. It is here 
with the imprisoned soul. Help abounds. The 
Spirit awaits our co-operation. We belong to it. 
We need not fear : we only need be open to it, 
to let it come, to let it have us and heal us. It 



206 

knows our needs, and is never absent from us. 
We are not so badly off as we seemed, nor is 
there any reason for worry or discouragement. 
Peace, peace ! Let us be still, quiet, restful, 
and calm. Let us know and feel the eternal 
Presence which is here to restore us, and to calm 
the troubled waters with its soothing love and 
peace. 

In due time, if this realization be repeated 
until one learns how to be still and receptive, 
one will surely become conscious of benefit and 
a quickening of the whole being. The mere 
form of words is nothing, and the above expres- 
sions are simply used in the hope that they may 
suggest the indescribable; for, once more, it is 
the Spirit which is the essential, the power be- 
hind the words, the experience which all must 
have in order to know its depth and value. 

The ability to concentrate is the secret of self- 
help by this method of realization, and this is 
an art which each man learns in his own way. 
There must be a certain degree of self-possession, 
in order to hold the attention in a definite direc- 
tion; and, if one have not yet developed this 
ability, it is well to approach this deeper realiza- 
tion by degrees, according to the method of 
Chapter VI. The process of silent help is, in 
fact, one of adjustment to the actual situation 
in the moment of trouble, — the realization that, 



207 

individually, one has little power, even of the 
will, as compared with this higher Will, but that 
all that is demanded of the individual will is co 
operation. God seems to need us as much as we 
need him. He asks thoughtful receptivity, and 
readiness to move with the deepest trend of the 
individual life. The whole experience is rather 
a wise directing of the will or attention, a real- 
ization rather than a process of active thought. 
The adjustment, the poise, the experience of 
silence, is a realization. The moment comes 
when the individual has nothing to say : the 
power of conscious thought becomes subordinated 
to a higher power, the Spirit. One cannot 
speak. One can only observe in silent wonder, 
in awe at the presence of such power, which the 
individual feels incompetent to control. This, 
in a word, is the highest healing, the most effec- 
tive, the least personal, and the hardest to de- 
scribe. One can only say : Here is the Life, 
the Love, the Spirit. I have dwelt with it for 
a season. Go thou to the fountain-head. It 
will speak to you, and be its own evidence. 

This experience may be further described as 
a settling down into the present life. In all 
cases of illness there seems to be a withdrawing 
of the spiritual matter or body, as though the 
person were partially disconnected from the phys- 
ical body for the time being. This is espe- 



208 

cially noticeable in cases of nervous shock and 
nervous strain, — that high-strung tendency which 
is made known through the voice, when the 
whole individual seems to be living in the top of 
the head. In such cases the effort should be to 
keep soul and body together and never let the 
one pull away from the other, to come down into 
the living present, to cease striving after ideals 
and dwelling in certain high-strung directions of 
thought, and never to invite any thought or ex- 
perience which tends to take one away from wise 
and healthful adjustment to the eternal now. 
This is one of the quickest and most effective 
means of self-help, — this settling down, down, 
calmly and quietly, into one's deeper and larger 
self, into present usefulness and equanimity, 
where reside the greatest strength and the great- 
est power. 

But sometimes one is unable to penetrate to the 
Source of all knowledge and to connect in 
thought with the Omnipresent Life. The Spirit 
seems far from one, and one feels wholly sepa- 
rate from it. In such cases it is better to make 
the realization more personal, just as one would 
rely on a friend who is ready to perform the 
slightest service and be a constant comfort dur- 
ing severe illness. One would naturally be 
drawn to such a friend in ties of close sympathy 



2og 

and trust. In moments of weakness and despair 
the friend would be one's better self, full of hope 
and cheer. It is in such times as this that our 
friends are nearest and dearest to us, that we 
open our souls to them and show what we really 
are. The mother's love, the friend's devotion, 
is thus the means of keeping many a soul in this 
present life when all other means have failed, — 
failed because they could not touch the soul, 
— whereas the communion of soul with soul 
through the truest affection opens the door to 
that higher Love which thus finds a willing 
object of its unfailing devotion. 

Now, if in moments of trouble like these the 
reader will turn to the Spirit as to an intimate 
friend, help will surely come. The higher Self 
is still with one, but it is shut out. It is near, 
it is ready, like the friend, to help us, to guide, 
to strengthen, to advise, and to bestow comfort. 
One is momentarily disconnected with it and 
unaware of its promptings. One's personal self 
and activity stand in the way. The human will, 
fear, and all sorts of opinions have intruded, 
causing the Spirit to withdraw, and placing an 
obstacle in its pathway. To still the active per- 
sonal self and let the real Self have us, to stand 
aside completely and let the Spirit return and fill 
the entire being, is, in a word, the secret of 
self-help in this as in all cases. 



2IO 

This is not easily done at first, and one is apt 
to force the wrong thoughts out of mind or try 
to reason them away. One often hears people 
say that they do not wish to think these wrong 
thoughts, but they cannot help it. 

Suppose, for example, that one has a feeling of 
ill-will toward another, some unpleasant memory, 
or feels sensitive in regard to some word or act of 
a friend. Instead of trying to put away the un- 
pleasant feeling by thinking about it, one should 
call the friend to mind and think of his or her 
good qualities, think of something pleasant, some 
good deed or some happy memory; for there is 
surely some good quality in every person. Very 
soon the unpleasant thought will disappear, and 
love and charity will take its place. It was not 
necessary to force it away, for one cannot hold 
both love and hatred at the same time. This 
exactly describes the way out of all difficulties, 
as simply and briefly as it can be told. 

In endeavoring to find the good side of the per- 
son who has said the unkind word or acted impul- 
sively, one soon becomes en rapport with the 
friend's soul, the real, the truest, and deepest 
person, who did not mean to act unkindly and 
who now regrets the unkindness. One's feeling 
of peace and forgiveness reaches the other soul, 
if the process be carried far enough to include 
both individuals in this quiet realization. One 



211 

is lifted above the petty, belittling self to that 
higher plane of spiritual poise and restfulness. 
One has found one's own soul; and to find this, 
in moments of trouble, discouragement, sorrow, 
or sickness, — this is self-help. 

Here is the inner kingdom of heaven, — a 
whole kingdom, — where dwells all Love, Wis- 
dom, and Peace, whence we can draw power at 
our need and become readjusted to life. Here 
is where the permanent consciousness should 
abide. Here is the home of the greatest happi- 
ness and the truest health, — a happiness and a 
health which only ask our recognition in order 
to become fully and consciously ours in daily 
life, morally, intellectually, and physically, 
lending an unwordable joy to every moment of 
existence. 

2. On the intellectual plane it is usually more 
difficult to find the inward centre and to realize 
the power of silence. The generally accepted 
opinions and education prevent one from getting 
into this higher state. Its own knowledge, its 
pride of intellect and assurance, make it diffi- 
cult for the mind to surrender; and there is con- 
sequently much more resistance to be overcome. 
One is apt to forget that, so far as one has 
thought out the truth, that truth is universal : 
it is not the property of the individual alone. 
The very intellect whereby the truth was discov- 



212 

ered is a product or gift of the immanent Life, is 
an individualization of the larger Intellect, — just 
as life is a sharing of the immanent and bounti- 
ful Life in which we dwell, and of which we are 
not in any sense independent. Only the mere 
opinion or belief is purely personal ; and it is 
usually just this personal element that stands in 
the way, some harmful or borrowed opinion, 
which prevents one from getting real wisdom. 
It is humility, willingness to learn, which opens 
one to the All-knowledge within; and, if one 
approach this experience in a purely intellectual 
attitude, one is not likely to feel the warmth of 
the Spirit, since everything depends on the re- 
ceptivity or direction of mind. 

In such cases, as, in fact, in all cases of 
trouble and suffering, the mind revolves in a 
channel that is too narrow. One needs to escape 
into a larger life, out of this narrow sphere of 
consciousness which has dwarfed and limited 
one's development. The very principles, the 
very habits, whereby one becomes devoted to a 
certain line of work to the exclusion of all 
others, causes the mind to flow in given chan- 
nels, and never to pass beyond them. If this 
process be long continued, with but little rest or 
recreation, nature is sure to rebel, and to warn us 
that we must be wiser and broader in our think- 
ing. And probably the surest way of getting out 



213 

of ruts, and thereby avoiding the long list of 
troubles, ending in insanity, which result from 
the constant pursuit of one idea, is to realize 
our relation to the universal Life in which our 
own qualities of intellect and power inhere, and 
which demands of us all-round development, that 
we may come into full self-possession and com- 
plete soul-freedom. Rightly used, then, the in- 
tellect is the basis : it gives the only firm basis 
on which to rest the superstructure of the spirit- 
ual life. 

3. On the physical plane the first essential is 
to explain to the sufferer that the healing power 
is present in the body, ready to restore all hurts, 
and that, if the person will keep still, like the 
animals, all will go well. On this plane one is 
in need of a wise counsellor to restore confidence 
and allay fear. The healing power meets with 
little or no resistance in the child; and, if medi- 
cine be kept away, and no disturbing influence or 
fear be allowed to interfere with the natural proc- 
ess, the mother can better fill this office than 
any one else. But here, as on all planes and in 
all cases, there is a grand opportunity for the 
wise physician, who, instead of making a diag- 
nosis of the sick person, describing symptoms 
and giving medicine, shall quietly explain the 
healing process, and how one should become ad- 
justed to it. In all cases of sickness the sufferer 



214 

needs comfort, needs to be told how to relax and 
take off the resistance ; and in all finely organ- 
ized people some understanding of the inner 
process already described is essential, in order 
to explain the keen and subtle sensations which 
would otherwise arouse the wildest fears. What 
a change would come to sick and suffering hu- 
manity if all physicians would adopt this helpful 
method, and cease all this disease-creating talk 
about symptoms, — if people would throw off all 
slavery to medical opinion ! The best doctors 
would still have plenty to do, and there would 
still be need of the skilful surgeon. The world's 
suffering would be infinitely less, and we should 
then have an army of men striving to teach all- 
round self-development and good health. 

4. In order to help those who are unable to get 
this inner help themselves, the first step is to 
find this same inner centre, and to realize for 
another the same peace and rest which is re- 
quired for one's self. This should usually be ac- 
companied by an audible explanation of the inner 
process, and how best to become adjusted to it. 
One person can help another only so far as one's 
own soul is developed in knowledge of and open- 
ness to the immanent Life. But during the quiet 
realization for another the same process will be 
caused in the other, if the person be receptive. 
One should therefore have confidence that help 



215 

will come to the recipient, — not through one's 
personal self, but through the quickening of this 
same Power within the receptive soul ; and with 
this trust uppermost, and a deep desire to help 
the other person, a good result is sure to follow. 

There is no effort to make a hypnotic sugges- 
tion in this experience of helping another, nor 
any attempt to transfer one's thought or feeling, 
but a realization of the needs and possibilities of 
the other soul. One cannot be in the presence 
of a person who is thus aware of the very pres- 
ence and power of the Spirit without feeling 
the effect, consciously or unconsciously. Simply 
to meet a person who has spiritual repose is suffi- 
cient to cause a beneficial effect. To express it 
in the phraseology of Oriental thinkers, the same 
vibration is set up in the recipient ; and there are 
those whose perception is so keen that they can 
detect the changes in vibration during a quiet 
sitting with a patient who is receiving help by 
the silent method. 

It is only necessary for these intuitively acute 
people to become en rapport with another person 
in order to perceive at once how, to continue the 
same phraseology, that person is vibrating, or, 
more accurately, the surrounding atmosphere or 
spiritual matter which reveals the state of mind. 
If the agitation be intense, it must be stilled, 
not by entering into the agitation, but by keep- 



216 

ing free from it, standing on the outside of it, — 
just as one would observe any change taking 
place in the outer world. The vibrations will 
gradually change, the agitation will cease, there 
will be a tendency on the part of the recipient to 
draw deep breaths, and finally a general feeling 
of quiet invigoration will displace the agitated 
condition both of mind and body. It may' take 
many sittings to produce such a change as this ; 
but the process is, in general terms, the same, — 
namely, a gradual quieting of all agitation by 
penetrating nearer and nearer the centre where 
the resident life meets resistance, and maintain- 
ing a quiet realization of the Power that is pro- 
ducing the cure. 

5. But the best and most lasting self-help, 
after all, is that wiser habit of thought, that 
larger helpfulness, for which this whole volume 
pleads; for it is what we think and dwell upon 
habitually that moulds character and sheds its 
influence on the people about us. Our inquiry 
has taught us to look beneath matter to its under- 
lying Reality, and behind physical sensation to 
the mind where it is perceived. We have found 
the origin of man, first, in the immanent Life of 
which he is a part, and of which he is an indi- 
vidual expression ; and, secondly, in the world 
of mind, where his beliefs and impressions 
gather to form his superficial self. To know the 



217 

one Self from the other, to be adjusted to its 
resistless tendency, to obey it, to do nothing 
contrary to it, as far as one knows, is the highest 
righteousness, the most useful life, and the 
truest religion. Here is the one essential, the 
life that is most worthy of the man aware of his 
own origin and of his own duty. 

There are many problems involved in an inter- 
pretation of life which we have neglected in this 
inquiry, — noticeably, those connected with the 
religious life and the great religious teachers. 
We have everywhere met an element that is in- 
communicable, that must be lived and practised 
in order to be known. There is much that can 
only be understood through patient investigation, 
much, too, that would well repay scientific inves- 
tigation. Facts and possibilities are revealed 
through careful study of the inner process which 
throw a flood of light alike on the nature of mind 
and on the mystery of life. The thought is 
well-nigh overwhelmed by the scope and meaning 
of these inner experiences. It seems almost im- 
possible even to suggest such insights and expe- 
riences to the general reader; for one must talk 
enigmatically at times, and rely on the reader's 
forbearance and willingness to test that which 
can only be proved through a similar experience. 
But it is everything to know that such possibil- 
ities exist, and to make a step toward their real- 



218 

ization. It is enough at first to be turned in the 
right direction ; to feel that help is for us, and 
only awaits our receptivity; to have some ink- 
ling of the great Power of silence. All else will 
come in due course if one have a deep desire 
for it. And, if we have considered the one es- 
sential, and begun to realize its deep meaning 
for ourselves and for our fellow-beings, the larger 
and more complex life of the outer world will be 
explained by the light and wisdom from within. 
For, who shall limit the possibilities of the 
one whose life is centred in this spiritual con- 
sciousness, the one who knows the Real, and can 
tell it from the transient and illusive? Do we 
have more than the faintest glimmering of our 
own possibilities, — we who live beholden to 
matter, as if it were the all in all ? Have we 
really begun to live, are we even half what we 
should be, whiffed about as we are by opinions 
and fears, at the mercy of other minds and of 
our own unconquered selves ? Half the facts of 
life go to show that man is a product of matter, 
and his thoughts and feelings mere effects of a 
fateful outer cause. The other half show that 
he is a master, — a master in embryo, it may be, 
but a sharer of the only Life and the only Power 
by virtue of his individual will and his invinci- 
ble power of thought. Life and all it brings 
him, ultimately, depends on his own wisdom and 



219 

the intelligence he puts into it. He is weak and 
fearful, at the mercy of matter and passion, only 
as long as he lacks understanding. To know self 
and overcome it, to know the law and obey it, — 
this is the sum of righteousness ; and all that 
duty demands of us at first is to make the start, 
to remember nature's law of growth, and persist- 
ently to keep the great end in view. 



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